Yahoo blocked emails about ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest

By Andrew Couts September 21, 2011

Occupy-Wall-Street — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Yahoo admitted on Monday that it unintentionally blocked some emails pertaining to the “Occupy Wall Street” protest that began this weekend. The company issued an apology on Twitter, saying that the blockage was “not intentional,” and blamed its spam filters for stopping delivery of emails that contained the anti-Wall Street campaign website OccupyWallStreet.org.

The problem, says Yahoo, “is resolved,” but warned that there “may be a residual delay” for some users.

Recommended Videos

The issue was first noticed by progressive political website Think Progress, which reported that it had tried to send emails that contained the Occupy Wall Street website from “multiple accounts,” but the message was blocked each time.

Attempts to send such emails were met with an automatically generated warning from Yahoo, which read:

Your message was not sent
Suspicious activity has been detected on your account.
To protect your account and our users, your message has not been sent.
If this error continues, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care for further help.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

Several YouTube users posted videos of themselves being blocked from sending emails with the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ website. See one of them below:

A Yahoo spokeswoman told CBS News “that some folks sending e-mail were getting the weird bounceback,” which the company initially became aware of on Sunday. The spokeswoman reiterated that the problem has since been fixed, though it remains unclear why the Occupy Wall Street website was singled out by the company’s spam filters.

According to the Occupy Wall Street website, which is owned an operated by anti-consumerist non-profit organization Ad Busters, the protest was attended by “5,000 Americans” on Saturday. An estimated 300 protesters set up camp in nearby Zuccotti Park, and “several hundred” joined the next day. At least eight were arrested, while others were detained.

Now entering day four, the Occupy Wall Street campaign remains ongoing, with a “loose knit” cadre of demonstrators holding strong in lower Manhattan. Some have vowed to continue their protest for months.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

Computing

How to change margins in Google Docs

Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content --- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Computing

What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app

A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Computing

Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.