If you have a Yahoo or AOL email account, beware — those companies are reading your emails to gain data for potential advertisers.
According to the Wall Street Journal the parent company of both email providers Oath, which is a subsidiary of Verizon, has been working on a service for advertisers that would give them data from over 200 million emails accounts. The data collected would help advertisers determine which people are best to target based on the product being sold.
If you think Facebook is bad, Verizon under its stealth brand of “Oath” just rolled out a new privacy policies on a Friday hoping you wouldn’t notice. This says Verizon’s subsidiary Oath can scan your email to help advertisers micro-target you. Greed. Pay attention to the public. https://t.co/clhMg9kOTt
— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) April 13, 2018
So far, only Yahoo Inbox data has been used to test the service, which if used correctly, could help advertisers save a significant amount of money by not wasting time on users who will never buy the product. Although only Yahoo emails have been tested, Oath’s pitch to potential advertisers who would use the service includes AOL emails.
What does this email scan mean for people currently using AOL and Yahoo email accounts? Sadly, nothing. In this day in age, almost all email accounts are used for advertising information. Google has been doing it since 2004 with Gmail users accounts. Even Yahoo has been doing it long before Verizon bought the company. Think about how you purchase something online with your email address and the next thing you know, an advertisement for the same company or product shows up on your social media account.
“The U.S. tech industry has largely declared it is off limits to scan emails for information to sell to advertisers. Yahoo still sees the practice as a potential gold mine.” https://t.co/V2cmvnJG1T
— BBB Western Michigan (@BBBwmi) August 28, 2018
However, as privacy concerns become a hot topic the fact these companies are scanning emails for advertising data is becoming more of an issue. Google revealed last year the company has stopped scanning emails for advertising data, but it has not stopped scanning for improvement as well as product personalization.
The fact of the matter is these large email companies are not going to stop scanning our emails until law requires it. In all honesty, it is free service we as customers don’t pay for, so we can’t be all that surprised when our information is used for advertising purposes. Now, if it becomes something more serious such as leaked credit card information, social security number listed or any other personal data, then that is a serious problem.
Report: AOL, Yahoo scan user emails, sell data to advertisers. @SimonettiLauren has the story. https://t.co/BLmIHUfsWk pic.twitter.com/FxUvYYiWFw
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) August 29, 2018
Yahoo and AOL emails are being used for advertising data, but it should not be surprising to anyone who has had an email account in the past 20 years. It is not right, but it is the nature of living in a technologically advanced world. What do you think?