Yahoo Groups – “opt in” marketing settings set to “Yes” without customer notice, resulting in large increases of spam. Apparently, when Yahoo was “down” recently, in addition to whatever else they did, they also reset everyone's marketing preferences back to “Yes”. These settings not only apply to Spam, but also to junk snail mail and phone solicitation as well. Below are the instructions on how to reset yours back to your original settings. Here's what you need to do:

1. Get to the “Account Info” page
   (goto any Yahoo Groups page, “Account Info” is in the upper right)
   [It will usually ask to verify your password]
2. When your Yahoo ID card comes up, click on “Edit your Marketing Preferences”
3. Change all those Yes's back to No's! or whatever they were before.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Reload the page to verify the updates were made.

You might also consider using Yahoo's customer response option (on the
privacy settings page) to email Yahoo a message protesting the “opt-in”
default assumption. Switching subscribers to “opt-in” when prior indications
are a preference for “opt-out” is considered unethical by the various direct
marketing trade organizations…