Everyone who has any kind of Yahoo! account has just had your marketing preferences reset by Yahoo! without any input from you, so that you will be receiving promotional notices of all sorts from Yahoo! advertisers if you’re not already. Several bloggers have begun to spread the word, apparently first commented upon at Slashdot, where instructions are posted to reestablish your old privacy settings:

Go to your Account Information screen (for each and every ID you have) and about mid screen you will see “Edit Your Marketing Preferences” link. Click on it and set them back to the way you want them, otherwise get ready for *LOTS* of advertising spam type emails from Yahoo’s advertisers. Note also at the bottom, that you will be marked YES for ‘By US Mail’ and ‘By Phone’ as well.”