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Yahoo Disables Automatic Email Forwarding Feature, Making It Difficult For Users To Leave (reuters.com)
After it was revealed that Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for U.S. intelligence agencies, now's as good of time as any to leave Yahoo Mail. However, the company has made it more difficult to leave by disabling the automatic email forwarding feature. Reuters reports: While those who have set up forwarding in the past are unaffected, users who would want to leave following recent hacking and surveillance revelations are struggling to shift to rival services, the AP reported on Monday. The company has been under scrutiny from investors after disclosing last month that at least 500 million user accounts were stolen from its network in 2014. The AP said that several users were leaving or had already left the service because of the negative headlines. The company's website says that the "automatic email forwarding" feature is under development and has been temporarily disabled.
So, there's this:
While those who have set up forwarding in the past are unaffected, ...
and, also this:
The company's website says that the "automatic email forwarding" feature is under development and has been temporarily disabled.
So... forwarding already enabled is unaffected but otherwise it's disabled - 'cause it's under "development" -- even though it's actually, already working?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This is really the only way forward.
It's kind of funny how it's coming full circle.
Way back in the day it was common to host your own email service. Then the ISPs started to push their own services included "for free" with internet service.
Then the common "free" providers cropped up (hotmail, yahoo, then eventually gmail) as a way to not get locked in to your ISP provided email. Now people are having a hard time getting away from the free services that they once loved because people are now realizing you cannot trust anyone and are going back to hosting their own email.
This has largely been made possible with the commoditization of "virtual private servers" and easy/free tutorials and solutions to setting up and maintaining those services.
Personally, I've been paying for email service from a fairly reputable provider, but I am now transitioning into running my own servers to manage it. Partly cost reasons (I maintain email services for clients, over 30 domains) and partly the provider I was using was bought out by another company I don't really trust.
Make a gmail account and tell it to pull the yahoo mail - then do whatever you like with it.
The easy solution is to create another account somewhere else and forward it to Yahoo. Start giving everyone your new address and access your email via Yahoo until everyone has made the switch. Then turn off forwarding and use only your new account. I know that seems mindlessly simple but apparently Yahoo thinks their customers can't figure it out.
The key to hosting your own email is having control over your own domain name. It is then trivial to redirect DNS mail records to any provider at any time.
Having user@youhoo.com puts you at Yahoo's mercy. user@mypersonaldomin.com allows you to choose and switch providers at any time with very little if any disruption.