Yahoo! disclaims responsibility

7 July 2008 - 10:53

The computer industry must be the worst on the planet for poor standards of customer service. Ask any computer user who has suffered a problem and most will tell you tales of being shunted from pillar to post and back again. The hardware manufacturer blames the software. The software developer blames the hardware, or someone else's software. It's always someone else's fault. It's a nightmare.

I just had the same experience while trying to get Yahoo! to do something about it's defamation of the Tech-Pro.net website. I called Yahoo's London office and asked to speak to the legal department. However, after being asked what the issue was about I was told I had to speak to "Customer Care." Of course, this is a euphemism for "We don't care, we just want you to stop bothering us."

When I repeated the problem, the customer care representative said "It's McAfee." She tried to put me through to somebody else, but when she was unsuccessful, she said that I would have to report the problem to McAfee, and she would send me a form to fill in. When I asked how quickly the defamation would be removed from the Yahoo! website I was told that she had no idea. It was up to McAfee.

At this point I started raising my voice. I said that I understood perfectly well that McAfee had given my site the defamatory rating, but it was Yahoo! that was actually publishing the defamation, and therefore it was responsible for the damage it was doing to my company. But no, the customer care representative kept on repeating "It's McAfee, it's McAfee" and that I had to contact them to resolve the issue (which in fact I did last week, as reported here. I have still received no more than an acknowledgement.)

I am not a lawyer, but even with my limited knowledge of the law I think I am correct in believing that if you publish false information then you are liable even if you were not the source of it. I am only trying to avoid the expense and hassle of going to court to get this slur on my business removed, but it looks as if I am going to have no alternative.