Open Letter to Yahoo

Please note: this is the letter mentioned in my previous post (the one below this one).

I was an early acquirer of internet technology (1994) and one of the first users I knew of Yahoo. I registered my own websites when Yahoo was a "directory service" instead of a search engine and you submitted your links to a live person who reviewed your site. You had to choose categories in which you wanted your site listed. When Google came along, I refused to switch. When everyone says "just Google blah-blah and you'll see what I'm looking at" I've been telling them that I use Yahoo, and I'll find it just fine. I have been, since I have been looking things up on the internet, a huge Yahoo fan.

I am leaving Yahoo today, and I felt it only fair to tell you why. I may be lost in the background noise, nobody may ever read this comment, but I sincerely hope someone does. I am taking the time to do this only because I have been such a die-hard Yahoo user. Your service is not inferior, in fact I like the way things are laid out on Yahoo and that the home page contains more information. I will miss that every time I have to stomach that stupid word "google" (I mean, what lame, lucky ass thought that name up? It should be a laughing stock but somehow they managed to make it hip with half the world. I don't get it).

However difficult it may be to choke down the silliness that is Google, it will be easier than the anger I have been putting up with due to the so-called "stories" that someone at Yahoo has been not only deciding are factual (when they are at best a lopsided misrepresentation of someone's political agenda) but are crucial for me to read. I can understand Yahoo trying to get more clicks, trying to get more page views, trying to draw attention, but I am here to tell you that I used Yahoo as my home page, my work requires me to be on the Internet more than 8 hours a day, and it was not uncommon for me to have six simultaneous browsers open - all to Yahoo searches or the sites I found by searching on your service. I followed up on advertised links, I listed Yahoo as "how I found you" on websites, and I promoted you to my friends.

I sure hope you're getting huge benefit from parroting the political bile spewed up by acidic propagandists who hate this country, portray the miniscule minority (by that I mean less than one hundredth of one percent) as more important than the massive supermajority, who aren't interested in the facts, only in sensation and manipulation, and who are oblivious to the fact that they themselves are the reason people (and whole cultures), hate this country in turn. Not because of what they're saying about us, but the lifestyles they themselves choose and promote.

If you had chosen to break through "journalistic" lies and portray stories about the truth (by that I mean actual facts, not emotionally-driven feel-good drivel that goes so far away from solving problems that it makes them worse) and highlight the massive stacks of stories trying to find a voice, that site their sources, examine both sides of the issue and settle on the truth based on how things actually work or what numbers are being ignored by the other side, you could have been a champion for the millions and millions of us worldwide who KNOW something is wrong with what we're being told and would flock (as we do in greater numbers than ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN combined) to whatever outlets provide it to us.

I do not know what you can do to get me back. It is highly unlikely I will ever so much as look at your home page again. If you do manage some miraculous, whole-hearted change in your policy away from misrepresentation, my e-mail will not change - you can reach me there (note to readers: my e-mail was included during the process of contacting them). I would love to hear it and would go back to my unending, tireless campaign to get people to "switch back" to the originals.

Until then, look for me at Google.