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Yahoo! to offer ‘Not My Email’ button to report misdirected email due to recycling abandoned IDs

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

  • Updated:

After Yahoo! started recycling abandoned user IDs, users started reporting getting emails from sites and services that the previous owner used. This is a huge security risk for those who lost their Yahoo! IDs due to inactivity. It seems privacy concerns raised during the ID transitions were justified. Automated emails from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn could spell trouble for previous owners of that ID as the new owners can view sensitive information.

not my email

Yahoo! to offer ‘Not My Email’ button to report misdirected email due to recycling abandoned IDs

The new “Not My Email” button will allow honest Yahoo! Mail users to report when they get an email that is intended for someone else. Yahoo! has apparently implemented a “email bounce method,” which tells sites that the email was no longer valid. Some sites and services have ignored this method and are continuing to deliver email to recycled Yahoo! email addresses.

Yahoo! claims that only a small percentage of users are experiencing email sent to the wrong address but the company is taking the issue seriously and investigating further. In the mean time, Yahoo! will be rolling out the Not My Email button over the next week.


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[Source: TechCrunch]

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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