I wish it was Google not Yahoo!

MyBlogLog is now a member of the Yahoo! family.

Just like Google, Yahoo! is also expanding their services by acquiring other potential web services.

This morning when I went to one of my favourite blogs and saw that my MyBlogLog(MBL) screen id has been replaced by my Yahoo! user id. I was shocked.

Quickly I logged on to my MBL account to see what happened, and I was asked to merge my Yahoo! account with my MBL account. (The last time I logged in to my MBL account was last night, so the changes were made when I was sleeping.)

Google Vs Yahoo!
Well, all these while I've been keeping my Yahoo! account identity and Google identity for different usages and privacy purpose. For blogging, I use Google with a different screen name. To my surprise, Yahoo! replaced my MBL id with my Yahoo! profile id without my consent. Frankly I lost my respect for Yahoo! as I have been their long time user since they started back in 1995. It has been one of my favourite web services provider, other than Google.

Google has, by far, never done such a thing without my consent. I was already a Blogger user with Dolphine as my screen id, before Google acquired it. After Blogger has officially became part of Google, I was offered an gmail account with Dolphine as the login id.

Later, when they rolled out Blogger Beta, and I created 3 new blogs again early this year, they still keep my old blogs and new blogs separated. Goolge didn't mess things up without my consent.

I know the changing profile information and switching account information can sometimes be a hassle, some people hated it. But the respective service provider should at least gives users a choice before making any changes. It's a respect to users who want privacy. The best part was neither Yahoo! or MBL bothered to send out any notify email to their users.

Profile image
Besides, Yahoo! also changed my original MBL profile image. Now when I want to upload my old profile image to replace image, it gave some ERROR message. Now I can only temporarily use the ugly anonymous image.

Not all users affected
Not all MBL users are affected. It was only those, like me, who own a Yahoo! account and MBL account. However, I'm still don't understand how and why they could change someone's screen id without confirming it with the user.

I DID NOT use my Yahoo! email in my MBL account, instead it was my Google email account as my MBL correspondence email. Could they be so sure that it was the same person? Or they were just trying to tell everyone that their system is smart enough to track and match all the users' data? Gosh!*roll eyes*

Identity = Brand
Dolphine is my blog id, and also my brand name for blogging. My blog friends know me as Dolphine, which is different from my Yahoo! id.

Privacy
To Yahoo!, it might seem NO Biggie, and it was for the sake of user's convenience. But I believe there are users who want privacy, and will be annoyed and offended to see the change.

I certainly hope someone from Yahoo! would see this article, and reflect it to their system integration team, so it would not happen again in their future acquired project. And please Do Not assume that users would not mind. At least I mind.

Don't get me wrong, I welcome the merging of Yahoo! and MBL and I think it's cool. I still love their services, and will continue using their services.

But I just thought for a big corporation like Yahoo!, protecting users' privacy should be their main priority and obligation. Hope they will look into it seriously.

Just no more surprises, please. Or at least a notify email.

So what do you think you of it?