Yahoo verifies address book - Would this bother you?

[whatthefunk]

Hmm reuse / recycling of mail addresses

In 1996 I got a very standard mail address from my provider (first initial+family name) and a few years later I started to see the problem it was the same as my user name for log-in.
Because we can make 5 pop boxes with each up to 10 aliases I decided to try a few better suited mail addresses like... teunis@myprovider but this last one was already in use, bummer

Once or twice a year I would try again and behold, one day the address was free
Pretty soon after registring I started getting mail that was clearly meant for the previous user, where possible I mailed them back plaining the situation.

But some of them were just commercial stuff like updates for a travel site and they wanted me to log in to the account so as to reset the mail address
I tried and obviously stranded at the password which, how convenient, they mailed me!

So I logged in and found the real name, home address of himself and his GF, passport numbers and credit card number...
I could have easily booked myself a trip around the world on his card.

Although HIS recorded mail address was now mine I decided to send a message to the one of his girlfriend, explaining this situation.
It took only a few minutes before the guy contacted me :ROFL:

I wouldn't dream about getting a mail address with those big outfits and I hate those that have put their address book including my details on such sites (or any other site).

I was just thinking this same thing. If somebody ended up with my Yahoo email address, which Ive had for 15 years now, from day one theyd be getting the worlds largest collection of spam mail. Yahoo can remove all the address they want form their own users address books, but they cant do a damn thing about the millions of address that spammers have got a hold of.

Then, theres all the things Ive done with my address over the last 15 years. Im sure that Ive used that address to register for dozens of forums, but I dont know which ones. Im sure that that address is my back up address for a number of different things, but I dont know which ones. Im guessing that at some point I too used that mail address to send and receive sensitive information and that at some point I used that mail address to register for some service which required sensitive data like my social security number, my credit card number, or something else. How am I supposed to remember what I did with my email address 15 years ago?

I understand why Yahoo thinks they need to start recycling addresses, but I have a feeling that this is only going to make their crappy service crappier.

And remember: at Yahoo, you aren't the customer. You're the product. Yahoo owns your @ymail or @yahoo or @rocketmail address, not you.

This is only half true. You are the product because Yahoo, Google, Facebook and the rest collect your data to sell to marketers and sell advertising space on their pages. However, they still have to get you to come to their page. They have to treat people like customers or people will find another service to use. This is exactly what is happening to Yahoo. When they started getting into financial trouble, they turned their once simple service into a data factory with no regard to what their users wanted.