Yahoo Mail's New T&C Raise Privacy Concerns

Yahoo Mail has made some changes to its terms and conditions, which have sparked the privacy debates again.

Yahoo Mail is the second largest web-based email service with more than 275 million users. It has modified its T&C to introduce a new system that will crawl through incoming and outgoing emails for keywords. This new T&C read, “By using the Services, you consent to allow Yahoo’s automated systems to scan and analyze all incoming and outgoing communications content sent and received from your account (such as Mail and Messenger content including instant messages and SMS messages).”

Some privacy groups asked Yahoo to reverse its decision to scan user emails for advertisements. Britain’s leading consumer organization Which? slammed this move as, “a blatant intrusion of privacy” and said, “most consumers would be horrified” to learn this. However, Yahoo has defended itself by emphasizing that it is asking users for their permission.

Google has long used a similar system to deliver advertising to Gmail users, while Microsoft’s Windows Live  webmail service does not scan the contents of emails.

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