https://www.theinquirer.net/w-images/4c41777c-d4c0-4e72-81f9-ea0a9815d29a/1/verizonnew-580x358.jpg — It doesn't look like a change of stance is on the Verizon

Verizon blocks archivists from preserving 20 years of Yahoo Groups history

Who do Yahoo think you are

09 Dec 2019, 13:22 by Carly Page

YAHOO OWNER Verizon has blocked the efforts of archivists to preserve almost two decades of history from Yahoo Groups.

Yahoo Groups is just days away from being defunct; the service stopped accepting new content from 28 October, with all scheduled to to be deleted from servers in just five days' time on 14 December.

Content destined for the digital graveyard includes files, polls, links, photos, folders, calendars, attachments, conversations, email updates and message history.

Though long-neglected, Yahoo Groups still remains one of the biggest repositories of message boards in the world, which is why a group of volunteer archivers - the aptly-named Yahoo Groups Archive Team - is attempting to save all of the content from the service to upload it to the non-profit Internet Archive, which runs the popular Wayback Machine site.

However, its attempts have been hampered by Verizon. While it's actively encouraging users to download their own data from the site's privacy dashboard, the firm is banning the email addresses of the archivists, BoingBoing reports, putting 20 years worth of content at risk of being gone forever.

"Yahoo banned all the email addresses that the Archive Team volunteers had been using to join Yahoo Groups in order to download data," said the Yahoo Groups Archive Team.

"Verizon has also made it impossible for the Archive Team to continue using semi-automated scripts to join Yahoo Groups - which means each group must be rejoined one by one, an impossible task (redo the work of the past four weeks over the next 10 days)."

In a statement issued to the group, Verizon told the archivists that "the resources needed to maintain historical content from Yahoo Groups pages is cost-prohibitive, as they're largely unused".

The telecoms giant also said those it suspended from the service had violated its terms of service.

"Regarding the 128 people who joined Yahoo Groups with the goal to archive them - are those people from Archiveteam.org? If so, their actions violated our Terms of Service. Because of this violation, we are unable to reauthorize them," Verizon added.

"Also, moderators of Groups can ban users if they violate their Groups' terms, so previously banned members will be unable to download content from that Group. If you can send the user information, we can investigate the cause of lack of access."

If Verizon doesn't quickly change its stance - and it doesn't look like it's going to - 20 years of Yahoo Groups data will be gone forever. µ

Verizon blocks archivists from preserving 20 years of Yahoo Groups history

Who do Yahoo think you are

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