Over the weekend, Yahoo quietly “upgraded” their profile system, resulting, intentionally, in a great deal of user data – specifically profile and alias data – being removed.

In a move that can only be described as, at best, disingenuous, Microsoft testified this week before the U.S. Congress that if Yahoo were allowed to partner with Google in a search advertising deal, it would, they implied, be an illegal monopoly. Oh, right, but if Microsoft buys Yahoo for the very same reason, that’s ok??

You can say one thing for Carl Ichan – he doesn’t give up. Icahn, currently embroiled in his own takeover bid for Yahoo’s board, is also fomenting Microsoft’s efforts to acquire Yahoo – or at least part of Yahoo – again.

A group calling itself “Friends of Yahoo” has initiated an online petition to stop a small group of hostile stockholders from forcing Yahoo to sell itself to Microsoft, and to “Let Yahoo Be Yahoo”. (Sign the ‘Let Yahoo Be Yahoo” Petition here.)

According to a tip received by the Internet Patrol, the resident evil behind the throngs of social networking and other sites that are tricking people into logging into their AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail accounts, and scraping their address book, has a name, and that name is Sigma Visual Technologies. Sigma Visual Technologies provides software that allows sites to get their users to import and email all of their contacts in their address books. Put another way, it lets these sites scrape and spam your contacts. In your name!

Here’s a good question: Why use the + when searching on the Internet? (I.e., why use the plus sign when searching on the Internet?)

If you are finding “SlurpConfirm404”, “SlurpConfirm404.htm”, “SlurpConfirm404.html” or “SlurpConfirm404.php” in your log files, and can’t figure out why, you’re not alone. Here’s what that SlurpConfirm404 is all about.

The lawsuit against Yahoo over the jailing of two Chinese journalist whom they helped the government of China to identify has been settled, after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang met with the families of the two journalists. In a rush of pollyanic* optimism, their lawyer says “It’s no longer possible for a corporation to say ‘We were just following orders’.”

The mega popular Facebook site has joined the ranks of social networking sites that trick you into providing your password so that they can steal your AOL , Yahoo, MSN, or other address book, and spam all of your contacts. Only this time it’s with a twist – they are actually spamming your AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) contacts in your Buddy List! The spam starts out like this: “According to his Facebook status, Friend’s Name (their username) is now “Friend’s Nickname”. Friend invites you to join Facebook and keep up with what he and your other friends are doing.” What we want to know is WHY are AOL, Yahoo, and MSN continuing to let this go on?

For the third time in as many months, Hotmail is down, and users across the country cannot get to the Hotmail servers to read and retrieve their email. Users across the world are flocking to our site, searching for information and help with queries such as “hotmail down”, “hotmail down?”, “hotmail is down”, “is hotmail down”, “is hotmail down?”, “hotmail servers down”, “hotmail down today”, “hotmail servers”, and “hotmail outage”. If this has affected you, then it probably really is time to switch to Gmail or Yahoo.

Yahoo has just rolled out a brand new version of Yahoomail, which allows users to both send email to cell phones, and receive email from cell phones, through a text message like interface.

Have you ever found yourself booted out of Yahoo Chat and you have no idea why? It may be that you have crossed paths with a so-called “Yahoo booter”. Yahoo booters are people who, for whatever reason, will flood your yahoochat session with data, causing you to get dumped out of Yahoochat. Yahoo booting is done typically to annoy or harass the Yahoo booters target.

If you must have free email, we strongly recommend switching from Hotmail to another free email service provider such as Yahoo, AOL, or Gmail. We personally recommend either Yahoo or AOL.

The mother of a Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was jailed for ten years by the Chinese government after Yahoo cooperated with Chinese authorities and revealed Shi Tao’s identity and personal details to them, is suing Yahoo in U.S. Federal court.

The popular Yahoo.maps service got a facelift a few weeks ago, as the maps Yahoo offers were ported to a spiffy new platform, offering more features and a new look. New features enjoyed by the Yahoo maps system include the ability to get driving directions within 34 countries in Europe, terrain overlays, and enhanced printing capabilities. Yahoo.maps may be found directly at maps.yahoo.com (not yahoomaps.com, although that is a common mistake). Choose either maps.yahoo.com/broadband for the feature rich version, or maps.yahoo.com/dialup for the old, simpler version.