This is how much a curmudgeon I am. For months -- since Yahoo sold out to Verizon and Oath -- I've been scrolling to the bottom of the first page and clicking "I'll do this later." That first page is a long winded script telling us what all they can do with our emails. I read enough of it to conclude they could do plenty with whatever users said in their emails and that I didn't want any part of it.
So it's nice to see some push back on them. Phil Baker at pjmedia.com summarizes a wsj.com article today. Baker at Yahoo Admits It Scans Emails to Collect Data to Sell to Advertisers and wsj at Yahoo, Bucking Industry, Scans Emails for Data to Sell Advertisers.
Here's an excerpt from Baker:
Doug Sharp, Oath’s vice president of data, measurements and insights, told the Wall Street Journal that email scanning is an effective method for improving ad targeting. "He said that the practice applies only to commercial emails in people’s accounts—from retailers, say, or mass mailings—and that users have the ability to opt out," the WSJ wrote.
Opting out is a challenge. A search for the word "opt" in the document turns up nothing. So by avoiding accepting maybe I haven't yet opted in.
But get a load of this:
"Yahoo paid $4 million in 2016 to settle a federal class-action lawsuit that claimed its scanning of email violated federal wiretap laws," the WSJ noted. "Yahoo, which didn’t admit wrongdoing, agreed as part of the settlement terms to make a technical change: Rather than scanning emails while they are 'in transit,' Yahoo now waits until they arrive in an inbox to scan them."
Well, isn't that sweet of them to wait until the email is actually delivered before purloining the user's conversation?
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2:04 PM 8/29/2018
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