Yahoo Japan Is Under Fire for Its Rating System

Yahoo Japan’s application.Photographer: Takaaki Iwabu/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

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.