Free Yahoo! Terms of Use Essay Sample

Terms of Use consists of a disclaimer by the owner and provider of a given service which outlines that they reserve the right to withdraw or discontinue the service under some circumstances. Terms of Service on the other hand are details of exclusions and instances when the provider purports the right to discontinue the service at their sole discretion and thereby disclaiming any liability. These are the tiny details given by organizations usually given in fine print where the users do not always remember to look at. It has always been a strategy used by most organizations to absolve them of any blame incase something goes wrong during the usage of their products.

Yahoo! Inc is a corporation that provides internet services worldwide. Just like may service providers, Yahoo! have Terms of Services and Terms of Use put against almost all their products. Some of their products include Yahoo! Maps, Messenger, BOSS, Fantasy Sports and Address Book.

The company has a right to terminate provision of the given service at any time for any reason. This is very surprising given the fact that most people have entrusted the company to handle their communication for the long-term and that their Yahoo! accounts have been used as points of correspondence in the future. This therefore makes it very uncertain what would happen if Yahoo! were to discontinue their services. Yahoo! can therefore pass for an unreliable entity given this clause that undermines the user's chance to sustain their use as they please.

Yahoo! does not currently charge fees on any of the aforementioned products it offers. However, in the Terms of Use, Yahoo! reserves the right to start charging fees in the future. In as much as the services they provide are very useful and necessary to the users, they are really not justified to suddenly introduce fees for the same. This can be seen as a form of exaction because consumers take a lot of time to build trust in an entity only to be rewarded by an unfair  introduction of a fee. In some cases the users have no option but keep on using the product because they have so much to lose having to shift to another product. This is the same case as for Yahoo! because it is very likely that people would have given out their email details to other parties for future correspondence.

Another interesting section on the Yahoo! Terms of Use is that which binds every user to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Santa Maria California. This is a ridiculous provision in many aspects given that majority of the users are not residents of California. In addition, the users are also required to adhere to the US exports and imports provisions.

The Terms of Use in Yahoo! also state that the company does not guarantee that their products would be accurate, complete or reliable. An example is Yahoo! Messenger which is not guaranteed help in instant chatting via the web. This clause can sometimes be abused by the company when they do not do enough to deliver quality services therefore causing their users unnecessary inconveniences. The users are also operating the interface at their own risk and that Yahoo! cannot be held liable for any loss incurred by the users. This actually makes Yahoo! seem so callous on the effects of some of its products on the users as they do not want to be blamed even if in some instances it could be due to their own mistakes.

I had not taken time to read the Terms of Use before and therefore most of these clauses turned out to be very surprising to me. I do believe that many other users do not take time to go through the fine print on Yahoo! Terms of Use. I have also discovered that I have given the company too many rights just by clicking the 'I Agree' icon which would later be used against my wishes to frustrate me. It is a phenomenon that is not easy to regulate and will be happening in most companies for a long time.

Having learnt about the Terms of Use being applied on Yahoo!, I have definitely had some resentment for the company. Yahoo! is just like the many other firms driven to make profits but have little interest in the well-being of the users. It also makes my future in using Yahoo! seem precarious given the many likely events that the firm I unknowingly agreed to when signing up with them. It is however unlikely that I would stop using their services because I have set my life around it and starting from scratch would be an uphill task.

I would therefore encourage other users to read and understand the Terms of Use so they can have full comprehension of the hidden facts about the services they receive. Most users only get to read this section once they have court cases when they lodge complaints against these companies only to discover that they actually consented to the mistreatment they are facing. Yahoo! still remains a key player in internet services provision but they can definitely work on improving their customer care relations. The entry of many other internet service providers like Google Inc is likely to stiffen the competition in the market and winning consumer confidence is a very key element in surviving in the market.

 

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