Yahoo finally gets what it deserves

One-time internet giant Yahoo announced a couple of days ago that hackers had stolen a huge quantity of login details, including passwords and security questions. The firm, valued a few years ago over $100bn but now worth a derisory $5bn (in a deal yet to be completed by Verizon) may be worth nothing after class actions for damages shred its financial status and its reputation.

I have a Yahoo account but I couldn't care less about it. I use it merely to login easily to some other websites - Flickr, Tumblr and Freecycle - and could easily create new accounts for these if I needed to. I have never stored any personal information or files on Yahoo or the associated sites and the password on the account relates to Yahoo only. You may wonder why I have not availed myself of the free email and other services that Yahoo provides. I SAID, YOU MAY WONDER [I wonder why? Ed]. Yes, thanks Ed, I'm glad you asked. Draw up a chair and hearken to my tale.

It was in the year 19.. that my story commences. I was only a country lad helping out my father at the local abattoir when one misty night the sinister footsteps of a man with no legs were to be heard on the cobbled street outside. "Don't go and see who that is, the football's about to come on" observed my father and so I never found out who he was. But later that same year (or one very like it) I heard tell of this wondrous new invention some folk called the Interweb and upon making enquiries determined that I would create my own Interwebsite, and so I did. It was crude, I grant you, but shapely to my eye and contained real information that was nowhere else to be found, unlike the vast majority of suchlike which held naught but links to yet other Interwebsites which in turn held naught but links, and so on ad nauseum.

And now my story takes a sinister turn. For no folk knew of my Interwebsite; it was a secret because so many at that time determined how to go about their web a-browsing by using Yahoo, which at that time contained many links to other sites and was right popular on this account. Humbly I made request that my own offering might be considered worthy of inclusion. Neither reply nor listing was the outcome. I pondered and tried again with similar result and then once more. And thus, rejected in favour of others who peddled rubbish and flim-flammery, I bided my time and brooded.

T'was in the year 20.. that rumours of strange beasts called search engines reached our small village and upon investigation I found that even my modest Interwebsite was recognised and listed, moreover in a place of honour, and that many seekers after knowledge were aware of it, and that I no longer needed Yahoo; indeed from that time on did its fortunes decline until they reached the present slough from which they seem most unlikely to be destined to be rescued. And serve them jolly well right.