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yahoo fined Want Privacy? Better Switch to Yahoo

Are you concerned about your privacy when it comes to using third-party e-mail providers like Gmail and Hotmail? Switch to Yahoo.

Yahoo has just been found guilty of withholding personal account information linked to Yahoo e-mail addresses by a court in Dendermonde, Belgium.

The court told Yahoo to fork over a €55,000 fine (about $69,197) ASAP and another €10,000 (about $12,590) for each ADDITIONAL day it refuses to turn over the information.

Yahoo was fined because it refuses to cooperate with a Belgian cyber-criminal investigation in which local authorities needed to subpoena user account info for several e-mail accounts created by a group of alleged cyber-villains.

Yahoo’s response was (get this) that it would only comply with requests from American authorities. So there, Belgium! Go eat some waffles!

The Belgian authorities are claiming that Yahoo should be forced to cooperate as the company provides services to Belgium.

What's really interesting is that the judge has been quoted as saying that the request to turn over user data “poses absolutely no problem with Google and Microsoft”.   Hmm - is that a GOOD thing?

What do you think?  Should Yahoo be forced to turn over their user data to prevent a crime, or should users' privacy be protected?   The implications either way could be huge.

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