Yahoo! Groups Safety Guide

What is Yahoo! Groups?

Yahoo! Groups is an online community where you can connect with people who share your interests and ideas. You can view and post messages, photos, polls, event listings, and links to websites. Members can create their own groups or join one of the thousands of existing groups.

Groups can be made private for a limited set of friends and family or shared with a wider audience of people on Yahoo! Groups. If you create your own group, you manage the content and control who can join.

You could join a group for your high-school marching band or Boy Scouts troop, or you could meet new people in a group about a favorite interest, such as camping or video games. Note: Children under 13 can't create their own groups.

To learn more, check out Yahoo! Groups Help.

What are some potential risks on Yahoo! Groups?

Everyone on Yahoo! Groups must follow the Yahoo! Groups Guidelines, as well as the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

Just as there may be risks in the town where you live, the Yahoo! Groups community may pose certain risks. Yahoo! Groups has a number of safety features, but you have to take care of yourself too.

Start with our general tips for online safety. Then, on Yahoo! Groups, keep these things in mind:

• Protect personal information. Don't post any personal information or photos could identify you to strangers.
• Harassment. If strangers can contact you, they could potentially expose you to unpleasant, sexually suggestive, or abusive language. If this happens, you should contact the group moderator or leave the group. Learn more about the visibility of your child’s email address and handling harassment.
• User location mapping. If the group moderator adds a member’s address to the optional People Map feature of Yahoo! Groups, the member’s location can potentially be identified to the entire Yahoo! Group. Think twice before you give your address to anyone. If your location is added to People Map without your permission, be sure to notify the group moderator immediately.
• Mature content. Yahoo! Groups users over 18 can post mature content. If the moderator of a group doesn’t place this content into an appropriate adult category, you might come across it while searching Yahoo! Groups. If that happens, please report the abuse to Yahoo!.
• Impersonation. Someone could impersonate you by creating a Yahoo! account and a Yahoo! Group. This person could post false information or send damaging emails in your name. Please report such abuse to Yahoo!.

What can be done to limit these risks? Review Yahoo! Groups’ safety features, learn how to report abuse, and ask your parents or caregivers for help staying safer on Yahoo! Groups.

What safety features should I know about to help protect myself child on Yahoo! Groups?

To be safer in Yahoo! Groups, you should know how to do the following:

• Manage group subscriptions. Choose which profile, email address, and membership type to use for each group.
• Control who can see group memberships. Limit who can see which groups you belong to.
• Hide online status. Prevent people from knowing that you are online. Or create a new public profile that limits personally identifiable information.
• Leave a group or unsubscribe. If inappropriate messages or photos appear in a group, you can cancel your membership. The group will no longer be listed on your My Groups page, and you will no longer receive messages.
• Limit unsolicited invitations. Group moderators can subscribe members to their groups or send invitations to join their group. You can opt out of this.
• Report abuse to Yahoo!. Please report any offensive content or inappropriate contact with other people on Yahoo! Groups.

To protect young people, Yahoo! Groups doesn't let those under 13 create their own groups. Instead, they can find age-appropriate content and activities on Yahoo! Kids.

If you are at least 13 years old and want to create a group on Yahoo! Groups, you should know how to do the following:

• Use the Membership Wizard. The wizard lets you control who is can join your group, who can post messages, and what Web features the group will use.
• Manage Group Settings. In the left column of the homepage for your group, click Management. In the Group Settings area, select Web Tools to manage the settings for the group’s links, database, polls, files, photos, calendar, and member profiles.
• Hide a group from the public. You can keep others from knowing that your group exists.
• Remove a group member. Anyone who behaves inappropriately in the group can be removed.
• Ban someone from the group. Banning inappropriate people from your group will prevent them from joining the group in the first place or rejoining the group if they were removed.

How can I report problems that happen on Yahoo! Groups?

Yahoo! has a customer care form to report abuse. Please complete this form if you are exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates the Yahoo! Terms of Service or Yahoo! Groups Guidelines. Make sure to provide specific information about the location of the offending content and the identity of the user in question.

Yahoo!’s customer care team receives abuse reports and takes appropriate action as necessary, which may include deactivating an abuser’s account. Reports that indicate activity involving child pornography or solicitation of a minor are dealt with promptly by Yahoo!’s legal team and, when appropriate, reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

What can I do to use Yahoo! Groups in a safer manner?

Yahoo! is committed to providing a safer online experience for everyone and, accordingly, complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Yahoo! Groups provides a number of safety features to limit potential risks. However, protecting young people online is a responsibility shared with parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

You should start by learning some basic practices for online safety. These include safeguarding identity online, keeping passwords secret, being cautious about contact with strangers, and creating a family pledge for online safety.

If you are exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates the Yahoo! Terms of Service or Yahoo! Groups Guidelines, please report the abuse.

Please review the safety features on Yahoo! Groups and show your My Groups page to a parent or caregiver periodically. Together, you can review the message history of any group to see the topics of discussion, or contact the moderator to if the group is inappropriate.