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Yahoo shuts Mail Classic, users must agree to being Scroogled

by Mark Tyson on 3 June 2013, 14:25

Tags: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

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Starting from today Yahoo will be moving users from older versions of Yahoo Mail (including Classic) to the new Yahoo Mail. “After that, you can access your Yahoo! Mail only if you upgrade to the new version,” says the official Yahoo Mail ‘help’ article. When you ‘upgrade’ you will have to agree to a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Scroogle you

The new agreement between Yahoo and you, the mail user “includes the acceptance of automated content scanning and analyzing of your communications content, which Yahoo! uses to deliver product features, relevant advertising, and abuse protection.”

People who don’t want ads targeted at them will be able to opt out of the “relevant advertising” feature mentioned above, through the Yahoo Ad Interest Manager page in their mail options. Also you won’t see contextual ads if you use a dedicated IMAP email client. However Yahoo will still be automatically scanning through your emails for the other purposes delivering product features and abuse protection.

If users are unhappy with the changes and don’t agree to the changes in policies then users only have one option; to close their account. Yahoo reminds people that an IMAP email client will be able to download previous messages, should you choose this nuclear option.  

The new Yahoo Mail and existing Gmail email scanning works in pretty much the same way and people have been happily using Google’s service for quite some time, though it is common knowledge that Big G looks in your emails to help target ads at you. All this must help pay the costs of providing the “free” email service. A popular free alternative, the Outlook.com email provided by Microsoft, doesn’t indulge in this behaviour now and it looks like it couldn’t be implemented for a number of years as it is very publicly poking fun at Google for “Scroogling” people’s private emails amongst other things.

Yahoo Mail was overhauled and upgraded last December with a new web interface and new apps for various mobile platforms but no one was forced to change over. A lot of Yahoo Mail users in the UK will be moving away from the service this summer as BT recently announced it will be dumping Yahoo Mail in favour of its own home grown service for its broadband customers.

Will this policy change prompt any readers to abandon Yahoo Mail?



HEXUS Forums :: 31 Comments

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I tried the new Yahoo mail and it kept logging out or crashing my browser. When I submitted the fault it said use a different browser!

I have been using Opera for years now and won't change it just because they won't sort issues out. Been using my Googlemail more and more lately gradually phasing out both Hotmail and Yahoo.
When you ‘upgrade’ you must accept a new Scroogling privacy policy.

Please, please stop using Microsoft marketing terms that don't involve Microsoft or Google.

It's was a terrible bit of marketing when it was aimed at Google. It's even worse when people use it against other companies.
Agent
When you ‘upgrade’ you must accept a new Scroogling privacy policy.

Please, please stop using Microsoft marketing terms that don't involve Microsoft or Google.

It's was a terrible bit of marketing when it was aimed at Google. It's even worse when people use it against other companies.

Totally agree, it's right down in the pits with such idiocies as “Micro$oft” and referring to companies by using their stock code which outside financial trading discussion I can only assume is a not so subtle dig at them being money oriented. It has no place in any standard of journalism.

Especially irrelevant when the customer is actually being “Yahoong out to dry” (see what I did there, crap isn't it).
Free service, quite reliable, what do you expect for £0.00
The privacy is a bit “meh” and not the real deal breaker given that I also use Google Mail.

The reason I stuck with Yahoo Classic, is because I did not like the new interface. I am not sure if they changed it since, but there were a bunch of little things I didn't like with it, such as being able to just hit back on the Browser button to.. go back. The reason I stick with Yahoo is because Gmail for segregation (different purpose), and I don't want to have to log out/in on one more account (it's pretty annoying especially when, for instance, using Google discussion groups or YouTube). As for why Yahoo and not Hotmail, mainly because at one point in the very early days (pre-Gmail), my Hotmail got spammed to hell, and Lycos Mail had a rubbish interface. Lately though, my Yahoo mail is getting a lot of spam, and a couple routinely go past their filters (which never did until recently). It's tempting me to jump ship, though I am not sure where to.