Support Fight Against Breast Cancer via Yahoo! Messenger

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 08 Oct 2009

I did not know that October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, because, you know, I do not have breasts. What I did know was that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month in the US. Now before you go off and label me as an insensitive jerk, keep in mind that I eventually found out about Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I decided to help spread the word – with the help of a software application.

The software application I am talking about is Yahoo! Messenger. To show your support for the fight against cancer, Yahoo! Messenger users can pin a pink ribbon on their avatars or they can update their status to read: “I support Breast Cancer Awareness Month". If you have the instant messaging application up and running and are already signed into Yahoo! Messenger, you need only click here to update your status. If you want to show your support by adding a pink ribbon to your avatar, head on over to the “Show your Support” section on the Avatars site - click here; the third items page.

Senior Product Manager with Yahoo! Messenger, Sarah Bacon, comments on the success of the "update your status to show support for the fight against breast cancer" campaign: “When we launched it on October 1, we pledged to donate $50,000 to The National Breast Cancer Foundation once 50,000 Yahoo! users made their update. Good news! We reached that goal and as of this writing, we’re nearing the 80,000 mark. Even though we’ve reached our goal, we hope you’ll still update your Profile status to support those affected by breast cancer.”

As a little trivia side note, did you know that Yahoo’s current CEO, Carol Bartz is a breast cancer survivor? She was diagnosed back in ’92, just after starting her work as CEO of Autodesk. She is one of the lucky women to have come face to face with this terrible disease and have survived.

“Many women are not so fortunate. The effects this disease has on those diagnosed are devastating. It’s a horrible, gut-wrenching experience, physically and emotionally. And we’re still losing the battle. Breast cancer affects 1.3 million women every year – far too many mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, friends and co-workers,” commented Carol Bartz.


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