Focusing on the second point -- "friendly" -- Yahoo should take the lead by publishing its own set of guidelines for its Open Strategy developer partners. These should offer clear, detailed answers to the many questions Yahoo users are surely asking already:

• Do Yahoo partners need to ask me before sharing my Yahoo data amongst themselves?
• If I use an application, will it tell me if it's accessing my friends' data?
• Can a Yahoo partner sell my information from Yahoo to a third party?
• When I stop using an application, will the vendor delete my data or can it keep it?
• If an application vendor changes its business model, does it need my permission before it can use my data for its new products or services?

And that's not all. For its iPhone developer program, Apple isn't content with relying on published guidelines. It's taking an active role, registering all iPhone developers and distributing their applications through a central App Store. If a certain application starts behaving badly, Apple can quickly retire it from service.

Yahoo could offer a similar approach. If nothing else, granting the official Yahoo imprimatur only to those developers who agree to a data-privacy audit would help to reassure users that Yahoo had their interests at heart. Moreover, Yahoo should demonstrate that it is able and more than willing to shut out any applications that don't play by the rules.

Social networking is one of the hottest trends on the Web today, but issues of accountability, governance, and policy remain unresolved. If Yahoo is really planning the largest social networking site in the world, it should take the lead in drafting best practices, as well.