Yahoo scans user email content for analysis and sold to advertisers

Yahoo, which has already been acquired, has been found to still rely on scanning user email content and then analysing and organising it for advertisers to make a profit. This type of profitability has been abandoned by most mailbox service providers, mainly because scanning user email content may involve privacy issues. However, Yahoo Mail is in contact with advertisers who want to sell up to 200 million emails, and tag users to send advertisements.

At present, Yahoo’s primary business has been acquired by US communications giant Verizon. After the acquisition, Yahoo and Verizon subsidiaries merged to form OATH business company.

OATH admits that it does scan the user’s mailbox:

In a statement issued by OATH, the company said that the company did scan all of the user’s mail, but usually only analysed the email content or the promoter information from the title.

Use promotional email messages to analyse what users are interested in so that they can be sold to advertisers and then publish more accurate advertising emails.

However, OATH said that the company would not scan the contents of all users’ emails, and users can also set up the blocking system to examine email content in Yahoo Mail.

Is the price of a free mailbox?

OATH believes that the email system is a costly communication system, so users should not expect a free email service with no value exchange.

The implication is that OATH needs to rely on selling user information to run Yahoo Mail, but the strange thing is that even Yahoo paid mailbox users will be scanned.

According to the OATH algorithm, if the mail is frequently received by the airline in the mailbox, it is considered to be a business person, and most of the advertisements received are advertisements for travel.

Via: theverge