This is the bitter tale and painful lesson of loyalty undeserved and unrequited. I originally signed up for a free Yahoo email account over 9 years ago. It was the hot ticket in town. The dotcom bubble had not burst and Yahoo was the darling of the tech world. They were the epitome of fashion forward with voice chat and instant messaging for the common man. I jumped on the bandwagon for a ride.

For years, I maintained my free email account and enjoyed the pleasure of chat with my friends and family. I started a free private group for my family to keep in touch across the miles. And after year after year of enjoying the free services of Yahoo, I joined the ranks of the paying customers at Yahoo to fulfill my version of the American Dream. I started my own Internet business and despite the admonition of other tech savvy friends, I stuck with my old standby Yahoo and purchased 5 domains and their Merchant Solutions package.

A year later my business, Fresh From the Farm, has made reasonable headway in the shoulder-to-shoulder jungle of SEO, traffic and conversion. I have no market presence other than my Internet store and as we closed the books on our fiscal year my son and I saw our combined efforts paying off. We were proudly looking forward to our company