> Posted by: "Rich Reimer" rreimer91@... rreimer91
> When we started this company, we had lawyers review the
> Yahoo TOS to make sure we would be ok.

Enron's chiefs had lawyers, too, who fought hard to defend them. Not to
compare Grouply's tiny place in the world to theirs, or Grouply's activities
to theirs, but the argument that lawyers said it is okay means almost
nothing to me.

Case in point:

The Freecycle Network, Inc. (TFN), which also has a lawyer reviewing its
practices (a respectable law firm, as I understand it), said repeatedly
(including directly to me personally) that it had Yahoo's okay for their YG
message aggregation scheme ("Finder"), until Yahoo publicly pronounced the
technique involved to be contrary to their TOS. That came only after an
outcry from YG members and moderators, and many complaints filed about it,
and even then not before national press media gave attention to the matter.
Prior to that, for a long time (more than a year as I recall), the scheme
was in place and operating successfully without visible interference from
Yahoo. Once Yahoo became convinced that it was a problem, and pronounced on
the matter, TFN immediately took its revenue-generating freecyclefinder.org
off the web, despite all the prior lawyerly claims made by TFN that it did
not violate Yahoo's TOS, operated with Yahoo's knowledge, and allegedly even
with their consent. Grouply's similar lawyer-reviewed claim of TOS
compliance is unconvincing to me.

In their public statement made recently on third party access issues, so far
clearly Yahoo is leaving the matter to the discretion of moderators,
advising them to do what they think is best for their groups regarding
membership eligibility of YG users connected with or enabling access of
third parties.

As a group owner-moderator responsible for working to ensure TOS compliance
in and by my group, I find that Grouply subscribers are complicit, whether
willfully or not, in at least an end-run around certain provisions of the
Yahoo TOS, if not directly violating it. I find that they participate in
enabling iGroup, Inc. to abrogate aspects of the spirit and the letter of
the Yahoo TOS. I find that Grouply encourages behaviors contrary to my
understanding of the spirit of the Yahoo TOS. Access and usage via the
Grouply method also infringes on previously established internal policies of
my groups.

Therefore, members are not allowed to use the Grouply method to access my
groups. There are so few of them, their not being allowed to use their
Grouply account to access my group has no effect on the mission
effectiveness of my groups anyway, but the presence of just one of them
using Grouply does involve significant risks, in my view. Grouply
subscribers otherwise eligible for membership are welcome to participate in
my groups, just not via the Grouply.com service, or any other like it. Not
being allowed to use Grouply does not prevent or inhibit their full
participation in the missions of my groups, in well established, reliably
convenient ways provided by Yahoo!.

Dennis Koenig