- Yahoo! Mail is now even faster, safer, and easier to use. Yahoo! now automatically identifies items such as words, links, people, and subjects from your email to learn what matters to you so that we can deliver exciting new product features and relevant ads.
Fortunately, there was an option to decline the new update. What if the USPS took to reading your mail, and offering you great new products that you may be interested in? No one in their right mind would stand for that. But not just because they're government owned; I don't think FedEx could get away with that behavior either. Do we need to just all only use pay mail services to escape this kind of treatment? I fear that even that would do nothing, because every time you send an email to someone with this kind of scanning, someone is going to link your email address with a product or service. Yahoo already offers ads based on what I've been searching for; why do they need this extra layer? Do they think this is why Gmail has been kicking their ass the last few years?
These big I-want-to-know-everything services are really creating a lot of viable niches. Everyone on HN is always talking about fixing email, but just making a quality email that protected your privacy would solve a very real problem.