In conversation with Yahoo’s editor-in-chief Ninja Srinivasan

Kamla: You mentioned the voice of Yahoo. What is that voice of Yahoo and how has it changed over the years?

Ninja: In the early days we focused largely on the one product and task ahead of us,which was categorizing websites. Tooday that still remains something that really a talented, diverse group of people work on. But the voice of Yahoo today is the sum total of so many more complex and rich elements because our products and services have become so much more diverse. So, the kinds of issues that I focus on everyday start with categorization but go far with beyond that into choice making of all kinds. What headlines are on the front page. How do we think about content programming and then even beyond the editorial round or the editorial standards and practices but into a lot of different policy areas, which is probably I spend most of my time these days. Things like privacy, things like accessibility and making the site accessible for disabled consumers, things like child safety. How all this plays out in a mobile environment, where the expectations are different, where the ground rules are different. And our corporate responsibility arm (which) we call it Yahoo for good. All of these things have the property that, there may be some legislation, may be regulation and it varies from country to country, region to region. But for the most parts these are highly under regulated, under legislated areas, places where it is up to us to define the bar because this continues to be an emerging landscape, because this continues to be technology that is being adopted in different ways in our society. So where we set the bar is actually shaping, what these things can mean to our lives. As a leader in this industry we can’t necessarily look to a sign out there that says you must be this tolerant or this right it is actually up to us to be mindful for the implications of our actions and to make sure that the sum total of those choices brings in an Internet and a culture that is one that we want to be a part of and one that we want to usher in.

Kamla: Your answers raise a lot of questions in my mind. One of them being, are you involvd-are you personally involved or is Yahoo involved in policy making initiatives at the government level?