Some users of Yahoo Japan Corp. are rising up against Japan's biggest web portal after the rollout of a new rating system that's being compared with a social-scoring initiative in China.
The 48 million people with a Yahoo! Japan ID will have to opt out within a privacy settings webpage if they don't want to be rated. The score is based on a variety of factors and is calculated based on inputs such as payment history, shopping reviews, whether a user canceled bookings and the amount of identifiable personal information. Unless users opt out, their ratings may be accessible to freelance jobs site Crowdworks Inc., Yahoo's bike-sharing service and other businesses.
Makoto Niida, a longtime Yahoo user, opted out of the rating system when he learned about it. "It's a big deal that the service was enabled by default," Niida said. "The way they created services that benefit businesses without clear explanations to their users reminds me of China's surveillance society."