rbacal - 2:18 am on Aug 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

Lovethecoast:

I go back to commodore64 days, and like it or not, those days of community ended when the Internet became woven into our economic and business systems.

In the old days, anonymous nasty posts couldn't do anyone much or any economic harm, since so few people accessed those posts. Not now.

My take on the lawsuit from the limited info in the article is that it is saying that yahoogroups has a terms of service, which involves implied obligations which they may not be keeping. And that they are legally obliged to keep those obligations.

What it is aimed at is trying to create a situation where yahoogroups is held accountable. To me all this means is that we ask of yahoogroups what we get on webmasterworld or other reputable forums. That there be a TOS which is enforced.

I don't know about others, but I doubt that webmasterworld would be worth a plugged nickel if it stopped moderating and allowed an anything goes approach. We can't rely on EVERY individual user to act fairly and responsibly, given the damage that can be done by disseminating false accusations, for example.

If webmasterworld can do it voluntarily, then shouldn't we expect the same of yahoogroups, particularly when it is a virtual monopoly in its field? (not an illegal one, but for all intents and purposes, it has only a few competitors, if that.)

I don't expect yahoogroups to work miracles, but I do expect reasonable effort, reasonable attempts to make filing complaints easier (rather than hiding the forms to do so under layers of their site), reasonable attempts at policing their lists, and so on.