Yahoo's New Privacy Policy Allows Data-Sharing With Verizon (cnet.com) 38
"Yahoo is now part of Oath and there is a new Privacy and Terms contract..." warns long-time Slashdot reader DigitalLogic. CNET reports:
Oath notes that it has the right to read your emails, instant messages, posts, photos and even look at your message attachments. And it might share that data with parent company Verizon, too... When you dig further into Oath's policy about what it might do with your words, photos, and attachments, the company clarifies that it's utilizing automated systems that help the company with security, research and providing targeted ads -- and that those automated systems should strip out personally identifying information before letting any humans look at your data. But there are no explicit guarantees on that.
The update also warns that Oath is now "linking your activity on other sites and apps with information we have about you, and providing anonymized and/or aggregated reports to other parties regarding user trends." For example, Oath "may analyze user content around certain interactions with financial institutions," and "leverages information financial institutions are allowed to send over email."
Oath does offer a "Privacy Controls" page which includes a "legacy" AOL link letting you opt-out of internet-based advertising that's been targeted "based on your online activities" -- but it appears to be functioning sporadically.
CNET also reports that now Yahoo users are agreeing to a class-action waiver and mutual arbitration. "What it means is if you don't like what the company does with your data, you'll have a hard time suing."
The update also warns that Oath is now "linking your activity on other sites and apps with information we have about you, and providing anonymized and/or aggregated reports to other parties regarding user trends." For example, Oath "may analyze user content around certain interactions with financial institutions," and "leverages information financial institutions are allowed to send over email."
Oath does offer a "Privacy Controls" page which includes a "legacy" AOL link letting you opt-out of internet-based advertising that's been targeted "based on your online activities" -- but it appears to be functioning sporadically.
CNET also reports that now Yahoo users are agreeing to a class-action waiver and mutual arbitration. "What it means is if you don't like what the company does with your data, you'll have a hard time suing."
Slowly the frog boils (Score:5, Insightful)
Slowly the frog boils
although not so slowly lately
Very Orwellian.
Re:Slowly the frog boils (Score:5, Interesting)
Slowly the frog boils
although not so slowly lately
Very Orwellian.
Believe me, it's still a slow boil.
There aren't enough users who give a shit about their privacy no matter what company gets dragged in front of Congress next. Edward Snowden certainly didn't impact change regarding privacy and social media use. Neither will any privacy-crushing revelations as more and more companies are scrutinized. 1 in 10 Americans deleted their Facebook accounts in the last month? Fucking please. There are more dead people on Facebook than that so-called major shift in social media use.
They kicked me out anyway (Score:1)
I had a yahoo email account for decades ; about a half-decade back they forced me to have a "recovery email address", I provided a fake one and it was fine.
For years, they asked for my phone number every time I logged in, to "improve my security" or whatever.
Now after "Oath" is running the show, they don't allow me to log in. They want me to check the recovery email address, which doesn't exist.
A shame : I can't even go in there and delete things.
I should have known better and deleted everything before it w
Re: (Score:2)
Aol is pushing a recovery ph number, still optional. I presume they are lying and that the real reason is so they can tie together disparate tracking databases.
Re: (Score:2)
Signing up new AIM account before AOL shut it down required phone numbers for validations.
Re: (Score:2)
google (gmail,maps,etc) shares data with alphabet(ads).
instagram/whatsapp shares data with facebook.
OnStar shares data with your car manufacturer.
Its just a case of X shares data with X's owner.
If you don't know which company you are really doing business with, that is the main problem.
Re: (Score:2)
and forgot: CNET shares data with CBS
Re: (Score:2)
People still use this company? Last I checked they couldn't even do search right and had to piggy back bing.
I still seem to be subscribed to a couple of mailing lists from egroups that Yahoo bought out, unluckily I have no idea how to log on to Yahoo due to not even knowing the user name, little well a password. The mailing lists chug along sending me mail over pop and it is easy to ignore the ads at the bottom due to using a text mode mail program.
It's a problem with most of these companies, you sign up with one and before you know it, its been bought out by a bigger one and then bought out again, each time usua
Why use Yahoo mail? (Score:2)
Other than being too lazy to switch to an email only provider that doesn't treat you as the product.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't, except... My yahoo address is easily associated with me, personally. I'd delete it entirely, ... except that gives them permission to re-issue it to someone else, who could easily impersonate me.
Yahoo any more (Score:3)
Who uses Yahoo any more? After that big ass data breach I figured most smart people would close any accounts they had there.
Re: (Score:1)
True. But there is a big picture here that we must not miss.
ALL forms of communication are monitored. Significantly and increasingly by private businesses with a profit motive, as well as by government investigators (who probably have a profit motive to, to which they won't admit, since everybody has a profit motive). Neither of these parties cares about you, or the harmful impact their monitoring might have on you.
GMail does this and has since its inception. If you go with a private, pay-for email prov
Re: (Score:1)
Nice punctuation, bitch.
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of people still do. Even if you close them, Yahoo! and Verizon still have your datas. :(
Get used to it. This is the new norm. (Score:3)
Automated, at least, reading of all internet message traffic including your email is implicitly required by FOSTA (or any other law that makes services liable for their traffic contents). Yahoo and Verizon are criminally and civilly liable if anyone is using their system to enable or arrange any aspect of sex for money.
If someone were killed in a meetup and the investigation afterward indicated any portion of the meetup had been enabled by their email system, as an involved entity with deep pockets, they are going to get hit up in a civil case. Period.
It is the civil portion that scares these companies the most because prosecutorial discretion won't save them from at least occurring big legal fees. There is an army of attorneys gearing up to make money off of this law.
Yahoo has to be able to prove that they have taken measures to at least try to prevent the use of their system to arrange sex for money trades or coordinate trafficking and the language used in the emails that get through had better be "coded" language that they can reasonably argue a trained person would not have picked up, much less a trained AI.
All online message traffic of all media types will soon be censored by the big guys and the little guys without resources to do so will simply be forced out of business. That is what all regulation does and why the big guys actually like it though they pretend to fight it.
I still use yahoo mail... (Score:1)
it's no worse than gmail from my point of view. I have both and prefer yahoo. Where else should I go? Been using it since the beginning... had many email providers, paid and unpaid. All have gone away except yahoo and gmail. Been on slashdot since 1997, but still an AC.
I thought that Yahoo (Score:1)