Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/29/wsj-yahoo-plans-to-scan-users.html
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This honestly surprises me.
Plan to? They don’t already do this?
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So just like Google, right?
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The only thing in my Yahoo mailbox is spam from their advertisers. Divide by zero error.
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Google stopped serving ads based on email scans a little over a year ago. They’ve got all your browsing data so they don’t need to read your email.
That being said, your email is scanned by all webmail providers are already scanning your email for spam and viruses. I’d wager Oath is doing something that is only slightly more sophisticated than looking at what the users have decided to not filter.
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I’m sure the EU will thank them for this advance notice of a massive GDPR violation.
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I have like a 20 year old yahoo account with an inbox filled with spam. Verizon can knock themselves out.
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still waiting for smugmug to offer up the new registration settings
they better not take all day
Wait, are you telling me that Yahoo! still exists?
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Google announced that they would stop using the data in your email to target ads a year ago. But they still scan your email. Anyone who has done a google search for an airline to check on a flight you’ve received email about, only to have the data show up right at the top, should be aware of that.
They claim not to use it for advertising, because they already have plenty of browser data for that purpose. I’m surprised anyone imagines that any free email service would offer any kind of privacy…
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Like most people I am logged into the google ecosystem most of the time. Which is why I use paid yahoo email instead of gmail. That keeps google from being able to leak anything out of my email into ads or whatnot.
Main reason for yahoo is simply that they are big enough to do decent spam filtering. But I haven’t looked around for alternatives in a while (understatement). Any suggestions for non-google non-oath/yahoo email services that are big enough to do good spam filtering and reliable?
I’d be embarrassed to use a Yahoo account to actually send a real human mail. (eta: why limit it?)
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I just noticed this “feature” last week. I’m not sure how I really feel about it. On the one hand, [insert relevant Doctorow missive on privacy], but on the other hand, this is exactly the kind of feature I would hope to see after giving a single corporation unprecedented access to my personal information.
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