Tech Friday: Yahoo and AOL sift through your emails
Posted By RichC on August 31, 2018
Tech news this week highlighted Yahoo and AOL brand email services. There are still plenty of users still using them and unknowingly being spied on (including me since I still use Yahoo for "junk" mail — I started with AOL & Yahoo in the early 1990s kept the simple rdc2@ addresses). The search algorithms and even employees are said to be searching your email and refine lists of users that they sell to advertisers.
It may not be a big deal if it helps you plan a more appropriate vacation, but can be a bit unnerving if you are seeking health advice and receive insurance ads or worse … funeral planning and mortuary ads!
If you still want to keep Yahoo Mail, go to their Ad Interest Manager page while logged in and "Opt-Out" of the "On Yahoo" and "Across the web" tabs. LINK
Yahoo, Bucking Industry, Scans Emails for Data to Sell Advertisers
When Verizon created Oath last year, it envisioned the new unit as a future advertising rival to Google and Facebook Inc. for its potential to marry data on Verizon’s vast pool of wireless subscribers with Yahoo’s highly trafficked online hubs, Verizon executives have said.
Oath owns dozens of popular websites, such as HuffPost and Yahoo Finance. It helps advertisers show messages on these sites as well as across the web, using a variety of ad-placement services.
Email scanning has become one of the company’s most effective methods for improving ad targeting, said Doug Sharp, Oath’s vice president of data, measurements and insights. 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.
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