Looks like it, anyway: “If you’ve been using Yahoo or AOL to avoid Google’s email scanning practices — or if you just plain use those services because you prefer them — there’s news from Oath, the parent company of both, that you’ll want to be aware of. A recent tweak to the company’s privacy policy gives it the right to scan all incoming and outgoing email, for the explicit purpose of delivering “content, advertising, and services.”” I’d be more exasperated by this if I ever used my Yahoo account for anything meaningful; as it is, I only keep it around because some of my relatives only know that one, and it’s a pain to switch everybody over. I figure that eventually either they, or I, will die of old age, which will handily solve the problem either way*.
Still. This is a bad time to get explicitly in the business of data harvesting. There is a backlash coming. But further comment on my part would drift us too close to certain lines.
Moe Lane
*It’s amazing how often, and how well, this trick works.
In the interest of staying in my lane, I’ll just note that European laws are – in this arena – much less permissive.. and that an honest eavesdropper may avoid the harshest punishment.
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Mew
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p.s. RIP judge Harry Stone
I use a Yahoo account, although I’ve been moving away from it. The bigger potential for them is probably the people who use Yahoo Groups, which I would imagine are getting swept up, as well.
This probably wouldn’t rankle quite so much (though I’d still be pretty leery of it) if it weren’t for the fact that Yahoo appears to have some of the worst account security I’ve seen. They’ve gotten hacked at least twice since I opened my account there. The second time, I got wind of it early and changed my password before anything could happen. But the first time, my e-mail account got turned into a spam-bot… along with the accounts of quite a few others who were using Yahoo.
“scan all incoming and outgoing email, for the explicit purpose of delivering “content, advertising, and services.”” ”
Well, bless your heart. Good luck getting past my ad blocker, Oath (of Stupidity).