ClippyHater's Journal: Yahoo! Mail...

And for my first journal entry, I'd like to whine for a bit.

Now, free web-based e-mail sounds, on the surface, like an absolutely fantastic idea. You start to use it, and you're thinking, "Wow, this is a Good Thing!"

And then, one day, if your luck runs out, there's a software glitch and suddenly the account you've been using every day for months has been deactivated due to not having signed on for 4 months. Again, been using it multiple times each and every day since the account was opened, and the account was terminated due to inactivity!

And your e-mail archive is gone. Poof. You send e-mails explaining your situation, you call and speak to a very friendly person who says they can't do a thing for you. Nothing. Your precious e-mail is gone.

The lesson? Don't use any free web-based system for things that you might consider even partially important!!

Read Yahoo!'s TOS, and you begin to understand the situation. Basically, they say that their system may, or may not work. It may work, but then stop working. It may eat your important and unimportant documents. They simply have no idea about the stability of their system, and they simply don't care. Go ahead and leave if you want, there are a million more who look just like you to take your place.

When you use a free system on the web, you basically are allowing yourself to become a simple number that will allow the company you're using to increase ad revenue (yeah, we got this guy clippyhater, so now we can charge you extra for the ads you want to display).

Arghh, painful lesson to learn.

BTW, it was actually my wife's account, as I use Yahoo! only as an e-mail account for signing up for BBSs/Slashdot/etc. Still sucks, though.