Yahoo's Plan to Recycle Highly Sought After Email Addresses

   By SheSpeaksTeam  Jun 28, 2013
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If you’ve been pining for a simple and specific email address from Yahoo, but instead had to choose something like “Jane42839475” then you may be happy to hear that the company plans to begin recycling old accounts that have not been used in a year. This means that there will be a lot of new handles available for users to claim starting this summer, but it has also raised some security concerns.

CNN reports about Yahoo’s senior vice president, Jay Rossiter’s announcement that there will be a large number of email handles available soon when the company begins purging old accounts. Rossiter writes in a press release, “If you're like me, you want a Yahoo! ID that's short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com.”

Though the idea may sound appealing to your average Mary89393827, others have concerns that the email accounts they will be deleting will cause problems for some users. Often times people will use a second email account they only go on for emergencies, like to receive a lost password. If Yahoo were to erase a rarely used account like this it can wreak havoc for some internet users.

Security analyst Graham Cluley disagrees with Yahoo’s move to recycle old emails saying, “In short: as an idea it sucks, and it shows Yahoo's lack of respect to customers who created accounts with them in years gone by.” He adds that the idea is just “an underhanded way to get people to re-engage with the site.” Yahoo has defended it’s decision writing, “We're committed and confident in our ability to do this in a way that's safe, secure and protects our users' data.”

What do you think of Yahoo’s move to recycle old email addresses that haven’t been used for one year?

Do you think this put people’s security at risk or is it a good way to not let a highly sought after email address go to waste?
 

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tatiel0u by tatiel0u | Morgan City, LA
Jun 28, 2013

This could definitely cause some problems. I personally haven't used my yahoo account in several years, as it became spam central and too much of a hassle to deal with. If yahoo is going to recycle email handles I hope they will have appropriate safety measures in place. However, with the lack of spam control I do see this becoming a problem.