Yahoo 'recycling' old e-mail

[MotionMan]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/20/tech/web/yahoo-recycled-email/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- Yahoo has announced a plan to "recycle" old e-mail addresses, a move meant to free up accounts for folks who want them but that has sparked privacy concerns.

In a blog post, senior vice president Jay Rossiter announced that Yahoo e-mail accounts that have been dormant for more than a year will be reset so that active users can have access to them.

"If you're like me, you want a Yahoo! ID that's short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com," he wrote.

The one-year period will officially begin July 15, when users can "claim" a dormant account name. They'll find out in mid-August if they got the account they wanted.

It's clearly an effort by Yahoo, which has been working to redefine and rejuvenate itself under new CEO Marissa Mayer, to re-engage older users and reward active ones. But it has security experts nervous.

Security analyst Graham Cluley doesn't mince words.

"In short: as an idea it sucks, and it shows Yahoo's lack of respect to customers who created accounts with them in years gone by," Cluley wrote Wednesday.

Cluley lists several scenarios where the plan could backfire. They include situations in which a user has another primary e-mail account, but has given their Yahoo address as a backup in case of security situations, lost passwords and the like.

He said the move appears to be "an underhanded way to get people to re-engage with the site" and that people who may not actively use their Yahoo mail, but use it to store old messages and other documents, could lose them without ever realizing it.

Mat Honan of CNN content partner Wired, himself the recent victim of a high-profile hack, called the move "a spectacularly bad idea."

In the wake of such complaints, Yahoo released a followup statement saying it's sure the transition can be made without compromising security.

"We're committed and confident in our ability to do this in a way that's safe, secure and protects our users' data," the company said.

The vast majority of inactive Yahoo IDs don't have a mailbox associated with them, the company said, and any personal data associated with the accounts will be deleted.

During a 30-day deactivation period, bounce-back e-mails will alert senders that the deactivated account no longer exists and Yahoo will unsubscribe those accounts from newsletters, commercial e-mail alerts and the like.

Businesses, financial institutions, social networks and other e-mail providers will be sent notifications about e-mail addresses that have been deactivated.

Yes, this is horrible, this idea.

MotionMan

 

[ViRGE]

It's a free account. Use it or lose it. Otherwise if you can't be bothered to log into your account even once for a whole year then you weren't using it in the first place.

 

[Jeff7]

Now AOL just needs to recycle their addresses.

All of them.

Into the Sun.

 

[MotionMan]

It's a free account. Use it or lose it.

Somewhat agree, but not the point.

MotionMan

 

[Atomic Playboy]

It's a free account. Use it or lose it. Otherwise if you can't be bothered to log into your account even once for a whole year then you weren't using it in the first place.

Honestly, I don't see what the outrage is all about. It's a free service. The expectation that someone should store your data for you forever at no charge because you filled out a registration form is just stupid. If you can go a year without it, it must not be that important to you, and if it is, you'll find a way to log in once a year (which is possibly the least onerous requirement I've ever heard of). You aren't entitled to anything for free; quit your bitchin'.

But if gmail ever institutes a similar policy, I'll raise hell!

 

[Spungo]

I don't see the problem. Oh no, some guy might figure out that ssjgoku@yahoo is the email that I used for my username sjgoku37 on the anime forum! He might request a password change and jack my Anime account that I haven't used in 5 years!!!

 

[Mixolydian]

Closing inactive accounts isn't a problem, IMO, it's the reusing of old email addresses - which raise security concerns and add confusion. Someone might send you an email to that address and it gets delivered to another person using that address.

 

[MotionMan]

I don't see the problem. Oh no, some guy might figure out that ssjgoku@yahoo is the email that I used for my username sjgoku37 on the anime forum! He might request a password change and jack my Anime account that I haven't used in 5 years!!!

I think this is the most likely problem scenario:

They include situations in which a user has another primary e-mail account, but has given their Yahoo address as a backup in case of security situations, lost passwords and the like.

That being said, logging in once a year does not seem like a big deal. I wonder if POPing your e-mail account is enough to keep your account active.

MotionMan

 

[lxskllr]

That being said, logging in once a year does not seem like a big deal. I wonder if POPing your e-mail account is enough to keep your account active.

MotionMan

I'd guess IMAP would work. You have to login to sync it, so that should count as activity. I suppose I should put my BS accounts into Tbird too, so I can keep them active.

 

[Midwayman]

Terrible idea. I would hate to think that anything I've used my yahoo account as the password reset address could be compromised. Besides, I'm still waiting to hear back from the prince of Nigeria.

 

[lxskllr]

Damn, Yahoo sucks. Look at this crap. This is representative of the ~700 messages I have there :^S

Edit:
Whoops. I got email notification of a question on SlateDroid from 2012. I hope he found the best ROM for a T301 by now :^D

 

[lxskllr]

Is msn.com still a thing? I used to have an email account with them, but they went through a couple name changes in the interim. My MS stuff goes through gmail now. I wonder if I still have a separate msn account. I'm not seeing anything in outlook :^/

 

[TwiceOver]

Just tried to log into my account. Do they really have a CAPTCHA for EVERY login? I guess if you get hacked every 30 minutes, you gotta do something to slow them down.

Can't remember my password anyway. Goodbye email account from 1997.