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Why Yahoo Should Abandon Email Scanning
twoheadedboy writes "Yahoo has come under fire for updating its terms and conditions so it can scan user emails. The move has attracted the attention of notable privacy group Big Brother Watch, which has called on the email provider to scrap the feature altogether. Yahoo says it is only doing the scanning to identify spam and better target ads, but that still hasn't put people off from criticizing the firm."
Is this the same scanning that Google does with GMail? If so, why no outcry there?
Doesn't gmail "scan" your email to get the ad keywords for the ads on the side?
Doesn't Google follow this same practice? I know my ads are very accurate to the e-mail contents.
gmail does it since launch
Google does the same thing, it will make them more money, and, frankly, nobody cares.
So guys, how about that mail service from Google, huh?
Are you guys 2 years old or something? There was a huge outcry about email scanning for ad targeting when Gmail came out .
Every ISP worth its salt does this (all spam filtering involves email scanning). Email frequently resides on ISP servers unencrypted, so the ISP (which owns the servers) can scan the email files at any time.
I fail to see why people think this is (1) new (2) a problem (3) something anybody can do anything about.
Not long ago an article was posted basically congratulating such spam filters for making spamming basically unprofitable now. I don't have an account with Yahoo but if I did I would take targeted advertising over mass amounts of random spam any day.
i thing there is nothing to worry about it
I am just me..
It's free, and they need to profit off of it somehow. So they need to gather info. Simple.
...but I wouldn't use a webmail service that doesn't have a SPAM filtering system.
Every time when you are entrusting your mails to a third-party, they can abuse it, whether the terms of service say so or not. Even if the company doesn't, some of the employees might, unless the database is designed in such way that no employee can access it. All you have is their word that they won't use the information stored there.
They have your data, and all you have is their word (and probably unenforcible legal responsibility), and you have trouble with the fact that they are analysing the incoming mails to protect your mailbox from SPAM?
If privacy mattered that much:
1. You wouldn't use a third-party for your emails
2. You would use PGP/GPG to encrypt your correspondence
3. You'd ask your correspondents to not use webmail either
Until then, you can't really complain unless there is any evidence that they abused their access to your data or that they added terms that allow them to abuse it.
And no, targeted advertising is not abuse, although it's another vector that can be used for abuse. But the main vector is that you gave your data to someone else.
As an email server administrator, I fully support Yahoo! scanning outgoing email: of the mail my servers receive from Yahoo!, 60 to 80% is spam. Sure, it's a lower percentage than from, oh, Ukraine and Brazil (100% spam); and lower than some big hosting providers like The Planet, Singlehop, and Softlayer (99.99+...% spam); and lower than a lot of the smaller hosting services like Rackvibe, iWeb, Hostnoc, XLHost, 3dgwebhosting, FortressITX, GNAX, FDCServers, Limestone Networks, etc... (100% to 99.99+...% spam), but there's still an absurd amount of spam coming from Yahoo!.
I assume they're going to start scanning outgoing mail, right?
It's about bloody time they got serious about scanning their own outgoing mail. I really don't care what they do with incoming mail. That's between them and their users -- I certainly don't, and never will, use Yahoo! mail.
No, Gmail did NOT get a pass. It was one of their biggest criticisms. Then people actually took the time to understand what Gmail was doing, and realized that EVERY email system that does virus scans "scans" every message. Gmail was just additionally using to target ads. Some didn't (and don't) like it and used another service.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Oh, wait...
There was a lot of complaining about this when GMail was launched. Some people (myself included) refuse to use it to this day because of that reason. Until now many of these people found Yahoo to be a better alternative to GMail because it had a better privacy policy. Now they have lost that choice, and are understandably upset.
Another big difference is that GMail had this "feature" since the day it was launched. You knew exactly what you were getting into by signing up for a GMail account. Many of the folks that are complaining have been using their Yahoo account for years or decades, and will have a difficult time transitioning to another address.
Of course, it is a free service, and you get what you pay for. But at the least they could agree to not scan emails that are being forwarded or accessed via POP for advertisement purposes. They already offer these connection options, and they won't be showing any targeted ads to folks that don't use webmail anyway, so why waste cycles scanning that mail?
What? So they are ONLY scanning to for this?
Which could mean any amount of detail is kept and used.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
With the rise of cloud storage everywhere and cloud computing platforms, are there any ready-made email hosting solutions that will use your private cloud for your email system? This would be your own mini-system that is not subject to scanning TOS, etc by google, yahoo, hotmail. Your data would not exist shared with other people's or company's emails it would be completely private.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If companies want the TOS to be a "contract" with their users, then they can't change the terms whenever they like, regardless of whether the TOS itself contains a clause saying they can... because that's not a contract.
My only obligation to a service is what the TOS says when I sign up. If they want to change the terms, fine... it can be different for new users. But that doesn't change my agreement with them.
If they want me to follow the TOS, then they had damned well better follow the TOS, and that means the TOS that were in effect when I signed up.
A lot of my spam which passes SPF tests comes through Yahoo. I'm glad they're doing this because spammers love them.
About 5 years or so ago, abandoned the idea of a home network with all my data on my own servers. At the time it was more about geek cred. After one privacy rape after another, I think I'm done with The Man's servers. Only thing holding me back now is waiting out my Android phone contract (with its Google dependencies).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
STOP USING FREE EMAIL PROVIDERS.
You are the product, not the consumer. It is not even a little bit free, you are working for them in exchange for some crappy webmail.
Lets just ignore the fact that from a technical perspective, every mail server 'scans' the message looking for various identifiers it uses to process the message.
Anyone who is 'freaked out' by what Yahoo is doing is an idiot who is completely unaware of the fact that the entire Internet would fall apart if everyone stopped 'scanning' other peoples data.
Can't route packets without scanning them.
Can't route emails without scanning them.
Can't even make the SMTP protocol work without scanning messages.
The post office 'scans' your mail too, both manually and electronically. The difference is, you put your letter in an envelope, hide from plain view of the poor sorters and processors who have to process it. The standard way unencrypted messages flow across the Internet is about like if people wrote all their letters on the back of a post card for everyone, including the postman, to see.
If you want privacy, don't put your message out there for anyone to see.
Don't bitch because your front yard isn't private when you don't put up a privacy fence, moron.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Yahoo says it is only doing the scanning to identify spam and better target ads, for now.
They just now did this??
I don't think so. 5 years ago the locked my mother out of her e-mail account for 3 days for "suspicious activity". She is a real estate agent and has to deal with people's personal information. I.E. Phone number, addresses, social security numbers, and bank account info. These are the reasons why yahoo said they shut her email accounts down, even though she paid for service.
As a real estate agent, having to stop business for 3 days almost ruined her as she had allot of time sensitive objectives. As soon as she had access to her e-mails she switched providers, I am sure you can guess who she went to for a better free service. It is plain to me that they have been scanning emails for years now.