Betty, since we get some good reimbursement on long distance calls as
part of Steve's "retirement" package after the labs went away I was on
the phone for a while today tracking down the direct fax info for Groups
Abuse at Yahoo for you and getting pointers (Had to go to billing at the
general number to get a person who could give me the number for legal
1-408-349-3687 then it is necessary to not pick a selection to get a
person to pick up, then they forward the call to customer service but you
have to ask before what number to punch to get the person you need which
in this case turned out to be "3" before they forward the call where I
got Tammy who then forwarded me to Kimela.
 
Fax has GOT to be better, ditto snail mail.  The fax number for abuses
is 408-349-7398 and the letter HAS to be addressed to Groups Abuse --
something that it does not say on their site and the fax number on their
site is not their one for Groups Abuse.  (They make it hard to report
abuses.)
 
Other things which HAVE to be in the letter: the site name and location,
a description of where the abuse is in the site, a description of the
abuse itself, a description of why the abuse occurred -- in this case
due to opportunistic use of a poorly designed site created to blacklist
people (which is itself against Yahoo Terms of Service) which completely
lacks verifications of claims and of the origins of the claims.  The
letter HAS to point out that libel, harassment, etc.  ARE in direct
violation of the Terms of Service of Yahoo.  Otherwise, they just say,
"Well, the list if the creator's responsibility, but when I pointed out
that there are violations of the Terms of Service involved in libel they
said that mentioning that does cause them to take a look at the site
itself, but it HAS to be mentioned.  It also HAS to be mentioned that you
(and others of us) HAVE tried to contact the list owner but the person
has NOT responded.  This information was given to me by Kimela beginning
at 1:09 Eastern Standard Time today, so you can let them know that they
have also been contacted by phone as well as by any e-mail reports anyone
made.  You have to include your name and contact info, of course, but you
already would.  She was interested that the origin of the claim against
you is also apparently false so you need to mention that you have been
libelled, that the site is created specifically to blacklist people, and
that the site owner does no verification of claims or of their origins as
part of your letter.
 
I think that to be most easily noticed I would organize it with blocks
(Insert spacings btwn lines because I am running out of room for the
FML copy of this letter.) followed by an explanation, such as:
 
Letter to:  Groups Abuse
 
Letter from:
 
Report of: Libel and Harassment, a direct violation of your Terms of
Service
 
Where:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dna-usa/   in ...
 
Response of Group Owner: Group owner fails to respond despite multiple
attempts at contact etc.
 
and I would include in your letter following the blocks that you actually
run a government inspected shelter and are involved in helping organize
veterinary symposia and fora attached to legal issues involving animal
well-being, so the claim made against you on that site actually may be
from a true animal abuser.
 
You may do it differently, of course, but it seems to me that such an
organization would immediately get across that this has to be dealt with
in a timely and constructive fashion, so I figure that I'll suggest it as
long as I am passing on why Kimela at Yahoo said must be in the letter.
[Posted in FML issue 4139]