Yahoo, Bucking Industry, Scans Emails for Data to Sell Advertisers

From the article - Rob Griffin, chief technology officer of digital-ad consultancy Tovo Labs, “is how do you monetize it without the icky factor?”<p>Uhhhhh how about don&#x27;t read emails? If I have a fantasy football team, please sell me football stuff. If I click on an article relating to health concerns, sell me organic whole foods stuff.<p>Can you imagine someone 20 years ago throwing all your mail into a scanner and saying, &quot;don&#x27;t worry I&#x27;m only checking for keywords and receipts&quot;?

This is a big business for hedge funds too, not just advertisers. Every Uber receipt, every Amazon purchase, every receipt that hits your email inbox. Aggregated and tracked at the product SKU level. That is pure gold for investment research. Few sources of data can match what email inboxes provide.<p>E.g. Superfly Insights [1], Return Path [2]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alternativedata.org&#x2F;data_provider&#x2F;superfly-insights&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alternativedata.org&#x2F;data_provider&#x2F;superfly-insights&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;returnpath.com&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;know-email-data&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;returnpath.com&#x2F;downloads&#x2F;know-email-data&#x2F;</a>

Try deleting your Yahoo account. It doesn&#x27;t work. They say they delete your account but then it wills till be there getting emails. It&#x27;s impossible to delete your account.

Does anyone still use yahoo for email? It&#x27;s a place where spam goes to die.

Doesn&#x27;t gmail scan your mail for data to target ads?

No great surprise. The only people still using Yahoo aren&#x27;t very tech savvy and don&#x27;t know about the data breach, plaintext passwords, etc.. My guess is Yahoo can get away with this and they know it.

It&#x27;s just a matter of time until all companies that sit on a ton of data start using it to make money. There is just no way around it unless they are being forced by law not to do it.

So Verizon bought Yahoo a company where every single email account had been known to have been compromised[1], and now they are seeking to monetize those same accounts by scanning their their contents and selling that data to third parties? No wonder the Yahoo hacks and very late disclosure didn&#x27;t derail the deal. These two basement brands deserve each other.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oath.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;yahoo-provides-notice-to-additional-users-affected-by-previously&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oath.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;yahoo-provides-notice-to-addition...</a>

Because they know everyone that would have ever left them has already done so. Nothing to lose...

Isn&#x27;t Yahoo gone? Shouldn&#x27;t headline be &quot;Verizon-Oath&quot;?

They can read all the spam they want ... it&#x27;s what yahoo email was built for .. of one your trash email addresses!

Today the lost hours maintaining my personal mailserver suddenly don&#x27;t feel so lost!

Didn&#x27;t Yahoo also promise a few years ago it wouldn&#x27;t do that (only after they saw a backlash against scanning the emails, I believe).

I hate yahoo and all these evil companies with their personal data collection fetishes.

I&#x27;m personally shocked Yahoo is still a company.<p>I personally don&#x27;t know anyone daft enough to use their services up here in Canada - even in the US (where I have personally seen the &#x27;average Joe&#x27;s&#x27; tech knowledge - especially in central and southern states - shockingly much less than that in Canada) it seemed folks avoided it, except the lowest-of-the-low in terms of tech knowledge.<p>They have, for the years since AOL was known universally as the worst tech company, seemingly fought for that title.<p>EDIT: Surprised at the downvotes. I&#x27;d love to know why.