Yahoo! Publisher Network Communication Recieved Today

July 13, 2006
Filed Under Yahoo! (YHOO) |

I received a communication today that stated the following:

Dear David,

Thank you for applying for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program. It is currently in beta and we are accepting a very limited number of new publishers, but we will let you know when we launch to the general public or if we are able to invite you to join the beta before then. To maximize your chances for approval, please make sure:

You have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and web site content that is predominately in English and targeted at a U.S. user base.
Your site provides a good user experience. Please see our complete list of guidelines for a positive user experience here:
http://publish.publisher.yahoo.com/rspac/r2.php?b=8&757576/20822953/757579/H/https%3A%2F%2Fpublisher.yahoo.com%2Flegal%2Fprog_policy.php
Your site does not contain problematic content. Please see our guidelines for displaying our ad results here:
http://publish.publisher.yahoo.com/rspac/r2.php?b=8&757576/20822953/757579/H/https%3A%2F%2Fpublisher.yahoo.com%2Flegal%2Fprog_policy.php

Thanks again for your interest. We look forward to welcoming you into our program when it is open to the public. Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Publisher Network Team

Two concerns I have about this communication -
1) When I signed up three weeks ago, I truly don’t remember if I provided a social security number. I tried to get to a place to log in and the e-mail address I provided to check, the same one that the message was sent to and was told the account did not exist. So how can I fulfill their request?
2) I have other ads on my pages. I wouldn’t take them down to test the Yahoo! Publishers Network until an account is approved. Yet the program policies indicates existing ads on these pages might prevent the account from being approved.
I would appreciate more clarification on these issues from Yahoo! Maybe they will ask me to participate in the focus group or someone who is can clarify? Thanks.