14 DAY TRIAL // The popularity of Yahoo Mail has dropped substantially in the last few years, and the hacking scandals that the service has been involved in certainly played a key role in its collapse.
And yet, there still are people out there using Yahoo Mail, and by the looks of things, parent company Verizon is about to let more of them go due to a strange decision.
Yahoo Mail will no longer allow users with free accounts to forward emails to another account, with the company explaining that paying customers will be the only ones provided with such functionality.
In other words, if you receive an email in your Yahoo Mail inbox, you won’t be able to forward it to someone else unless you’re a paying customer.
The change will come into effect on January 1, Verizon announced this week.
“If your free Yahoo Mail account is set up to automatically forward emails to a third party inbox such as Gmail, those emails will stop being delivered to the third party address on January 1, 2021. You’ll still be able to view your emails in your Yahoo mailbox through your web browser at mail.yahoo.com or via the Yahoo Mail apps. Yahoo Mail Pro subscribers will not be affected by this change,” the company explains.
It's not difficult to figure out why Verizon took this decision. With the popularity of Yahoo Mail obviously declining, some users who just wanted to retain their Yahoo inboxes configured auto-forwarding rules to other accounts, so all emails that arrived on Yahoo Mail were automatically redirected to another email address.
However, Verizon says the reason it’s doing the whole thing is because of security reasons.
“We regularly evaluate our products and services against current security standards and have decided to remove this feature to help ensure free Yahoo Mail accounts remain secure. The change will help us focus on building the best new features and experiences for our Yahoo Mail users,” it says.
While no specifics were provided, email forwarding rules could be used by hackers to get their hands on sensitive information that is sent to a hacked they got access to, all without the owner knowing about it.
If for some reason you want to stick with Yahoo Mail but still want to forward emails, there are two options available right now: purchase either Yahoo Mail Pro or just the Access + Forwarding package.
“To continue using Yahoo Mail auto forwarding, sign up for Access + Forwarding. Access + Forwarding will ensure your current forwarding connection continues seamlessly. You’ll also benefit from Yahoo Mail’s 1TB of storage, so your emails and attached files won’t get purged due to long periods of inactivity. Alternatively, you can upgrade to Yahoo Mail Pro. Yahoo Mail Pro will remove ads from your Yahoo Mail inbox and provide you with priority customer support while allowing you to automatically forward emails to third-party accounts,” Verizon says.
Needless to say, they don’t come cheap, which is rather unusual given there are plenty of other email services out there that offer the same functionality at absolutely no charge (I’m looking at you, Gmail). For example, Yahoo Mail Pro can be yours with a $3.49 per month fee, while the Access + Forwarding package can be purchased with a $12 annual subscription.
It remains to be seen how many users will make the switch to the subscription services following this unexpected Verizon decision, but for now, I wouldn’t be surprised if another wave of users drop Yahoo Mail and switch to the many alternatives out there.