Dear Yahoo, Please Go Away

At this point, you’re basically just a worthless repository of hackable private information.

Dear Yahoo,

What good have you been since like 1997? NONE good is the answer. It seems your sole reason for being is just one big negative-o: allowing hackers to garble up and steal people’s private data.

I understand that at one point in time you had a purpose. You were the “it” search engine for about 5 minutes before Google came along and had your lunch. Then, for a few years, you languished about harmlessly like an old cat, no one really giving a shit about you. Sure, some baby boomers who hadn’t updated their Favorites tabs in 8 years still used you, and — I have to admit — you still were okay for fantasy sports. For the most part, however, you were just there — in the background, the waaay background. The Radio Shack of search engines.

But then something happened, Yahoo. First, we learned this past September that hackers got their hands on information from 500 million user accounts in 2014. Now, we’re hearing that in a separate incursion in 2013 hackers stole information from 1 billion users.

In other words, Yahoo, you went from harmless and a little pathetic to dangerous and truly annoying. You see, although basically no one below the age of 50 uses you anymore, you still (apparently and surprisingly) have data on lots of people. Maybe it’s old data from users who searched for Hit Me Baby One More Time videos in your heyday. Maybe it’s from people who were too drunk to realize they had accidentally switched their preferred search engine from Google to Yahoo one night. Maybe it’s from people like me who stupidly gave you my name, credit card information, and birth date in 2012 so I could lose $50 playing an online March Madness pool. Yes, that’s right Yahoo, you have my data. And thanks to you some guy in Russia does too.

In every family there’s that weird person who gets teased a bit behind their back. But they’re still loved and not disowned, at least not until the local paper starts reporting that they’ve been arrested for performing sex acts on farm animals. That’s you now, Yahoo. You are that family member with their mug shot in the newspaper, right above the photo of the barn where it all happened. I disown you.

Thanks for nothing. Just die.