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Why Yahoo Should Abandon Email Scanning

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-can-trust-us dept.

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."

8 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. And GMail gets a pass? by rekoil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this the same scanning that Google does with GMail? If so, why no outcry there?

    1. Re:And GMail gets a pass? by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is this the same scanning that Google does with GMail? If so, why no outcry there?

      But everyone loves Google, and we all know Yahoo is a washed up has-been looking for any way to turn a profit to keep its zombie brain-eating existance alive. /snark

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    2. Re:And GMail gets a pass? by Rincewind42 · · Score: 3, Informative

      There was an outcry when google first launched GMail. A senator form CA even proposed a bill to curb GMail's scanning abilities.

    3. Re:And GMail gets a pass? by bmo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because they've always done it.

      I have a gmail account. it's only a couple of years old. I've moved everything to it because of convenience, and I have not been spammed to hell-and-back with Google Ads over the years on other sites.

      Also....

      If you tend toward tinfoil, you have no excuse not using gpg or other encryption for your messages. Plaintext is plaintext and sending email across half the planet is nearly literally sending a postcard and anyone along the way can read it. If you value your email privacy that much to not use Gmail because of scanning for ad serving, then you should be encrypting everything.

      Phil Zimmerman nearly went to jail so you could use encryption. If you don't want people looking at your stuff, friggin' get off your ass and use it.

      Which brings me to the Cloud and the privacy concerns with that. If you're going to upload sensitive stuff to Dropbox and other providers, without encrypting, you're a complete idiot. With encryption I can put shit up on a public FTP or anywhere that shares files with the public as a "poor man's offsite backup" (you'd have to be really poor, but hey) and nobody can see /anything/ unless they have the key.

      So in that light...

      Yes, Google gets a pass because the nature of the beast is a known quantity.

      >Pretending that Hotmail protects your privacy or that any public email provider does.

      No. You cannot trust this shit blindly. There are privacy policies that are written up to say "we can change this at any time" and unless you check these things daily, they can change under your nose and you'd never know. Don't trust 'em. Treat them like you would treat Google. Treat them all the same.

      I could go on a rant about FB paranoia, but that is a digression too far.

      --
      BMO

    4. Re:And GMail gets a pass? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're not actually anonymous.

      Cheers,

      Google

  2. I love privacy and all... by impaledsunset · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.

  3. Nothing to see here, move along.... by jbarr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!
  4. Some people care, some don't. by pavon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?