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Change to Yahoo Mail Reduces Your Privacy

by Fox Van Allen on June 12, 2013

Yahoo! MailDo you still have a Yahoo! email account? Last week, the company shut down the classic version of Yahoo Mail, forcing customers to upgrade to the new Yahoo mail. And in doing so, you’ll be required to consent to allowing the company to scan your personal communications for words and phrases that allow it to better target you with advertisements.

Of course, this type of context-based advertising is nothing new for the industry. Google has been looking through your inbox to suggest these types of ads for years. Only Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail) remains as a free, scan-free alternative – though the service offers advertisements, it doesn’t read your individual emails to target the ads to you.

If you don’t want to give Yahoo consent to scan your emails, you don’t have much recourse at the moment. You can turn off context-based advertising using the company’s Ad Interest Manager, but there’s no way to turn off the scan. For those who don’t want to use the new Yahoo Mail, the company offers two options: Either download your email using an IMAP program (like Mail) or close your account. Those who are paying for Yahoo’s premium Mail Plus service can request a prorated refund.

The reality of the Internet is that nothing on it is really free – everything is supported by advertisements. And, of course, the more effective those advertisements are, the more money companies make and the more ad-supported services those companies will be able to offer.

 


Topics

Computers and Software, News, Internet & Networking, Blog, Privacy


Discussion loading

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From humu on June 14, 2013 :: 3:13 am


i need more infortion from you

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From bebe rebozo on June 18, 2013 :: 2:33 pm


I literally I just got off the phone w/ a Yaboo! rep… two of my accounts were hacked yesterday, and I was locked out before I could change my pw.  Needless to say, 76 minutes of wasted cell phone time on hold w/ Yaboo!

While on the phone waiting to get the situation straightened out, I mentioned to the 20-something rep that many of us out here were NOT happy w/ the “MANDATORY” switch to the upgraded Yahoo acct—mainly b/c we’re not comfortable w/ having our content scanned for “marketing” purposes.

I’ve been holding this off for 6 mos now…because of this privacy issue. 

His response?

“Oh, no… Yahoo! doesn’t scan content… I think just Google does! We don’t do that.”

I wonder how much they’re paying him per hour to NOT READ THE FINE PRINT on the email “privacy” page.

>:/

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From Josh Kirschner on June 18, 2013 :: 3:46 pm


Something odd seemed to happen with Yahoo in the last few days. Anecdotally, I saw a big uptick in spam email come into my mailbox from hacked Yahoo accounts of friends. Perhaps there was a phishing epidemic that is taking advantage of the recent changes at Yahoo.

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