Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding • Hacker News Board

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#41

Post by zulln » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #38

MisterWalter wrote: post #36

I worked at a school helpdesk for a while, and I saw that whenever school email accounts were hacked, the attackers would set up forwarding to some other account. People wouldn't notice the forwarding for weeks or longer, and would only come in to us by chance. In the meantime, a lot of information could be siphoned off. There could be some legitimate security concerns there, especially since most yahoo accounts don'…

There is a very easy solution to this, which I believe Gmail employs: Place a very noticeable banner on the inbox when all your email is being forwarded to another address.

I forward everything that _does not_ match a specific string using the filter feature in Gmail, and I get no such banner. It is a company owned email, with a custom domain and such, but should not differ in this case.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#42

Post by zulln » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

eberkund wrote: post #5

Vanit wrote: post #4

This is why you should use your own email domain so you can just shuffle it around providers as needed.

For most providers, using your own domain is a paid feature.

I have used Zoho for a while now without spending a cent.

Would not mind paying a few bucks for the service though, email is a such essential tool for everyone these days anyways.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#43

Post by zulln » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

eberkund wrote: post #5

Vanit wrote: post #4

This is why you should use your own email domain so you can just shuffle it around providers as needed.

For most providers, using your own domain is a paid feature.

I have used Zoho for a while now without spending a cent.

Would not mind paying a few bucks for the service though, email is a such essential tool for everyone these days anyways.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#44

Post by ethagnawl » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:40 PM UTC

fixxer wrote: post #8

I remember moving away from Yahoo! in 2008. It was like ripping off a bandaid, but after 3 months, I was able to stop checking it. I replaced it with a personal domain with email hosting through gmail. Today, protonmail looks like an interesting alternative, and thanks to this setup, would be a painless transition.

I moved to ProtonMail (from Gmail) at the beginning of this year and haven't looked back. They also now let you bring your own domain name, which they didn't back then.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#45

Post by asdffderty » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

I've a really weird issue where I want to delete my old yahoo account but the recovery email address has type in it, i.e. it is _____@gmail.clm l instead of o. So, I cannot reset my yahoo password. Is there any way to contact yahoo to fix that typo?

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#46

Post by ikeboy » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:50 PM UTC

zulln wrote: post #41

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very easy solution to this, which I believe Gmail employs: Place a very noticeable banner on the inbox when all your email is being forwarded to another address.

I forward everything that _does not_ match a specific string using the filter feature in Gmail, and I get no such banner. It is a company owned email, with a custom domain and such, but should not differ in this case.

The banner only shows for a week after you set it up.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#47

Post by SXX » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:51 PM UTC

hollander wrote: post #22

pasbesoin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be afraid of Google's control over my domain name registration. Even if they don't do anything malicious, their "wall of silence" with respect to support leaves me very apprehensive. (Some people say it's different for paid-product support, but I don't know whether this includes $12/year domain name registration -- or will so in future.)

You can keep registration at your preferred provider, and set DNS for MX to Google, and there you go.

Can you please explain how exactly this going to work without Google Apps? Am I missing something?

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#48

Post by ikeboy » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 11:04 PM UTC

>Update, 10/10/16, 5:30 PM ET –

Yahoo shared the following statement with TechCrunch:

“We’re working to get auto-forward back up and running as soon as possible because we know how useful it can be to our users. The feature was temporary disabled as part of previously planned maintenance to improve its functionality between a user’s various accounts. Users can expect an update to the auto-forward functionality soon. In the meantime, we continue to support multiple account management. ”

The headline heavily implies it's permanent and intentional as an obstacle, which are not supported by available evidence.

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#49

Post by a3n » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 11:05 PM UTC

vsloo wrote: post #20

We had a few customers complain to us that they couldn't forward customer support messages from Yahoo to Reamaze. Now we know why. Frankly, a very un-customer move by Yahoo.

Which customers are you talking about? Users? Yahoo is selling users to Verizon.

If you were selling a herd of cattle, you wouldn't just leave the gate open and let them leave, would you?

Re: Yahoo makes it difficult to leave its service by disabling email forwarding

#50

Post by pasbesoin » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

hollander wrote: post #22

pasbesoin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be afraid of Google's control over my domain name registration. Even if they don't do anything malicious, their "wall of silence" with respect to support leaves me very apprehensive. (Some people say it's different for paid-product support, but I don't know whether this includes $12/year domain name registration -- or will so in future.)

You can keep registration at your preferred provider, and set DNS for MX to Google, and there you go.

Exactly. I believe the/an ancestor was referring to getting registration through Google and taking advantage of a "free" Gmail account against that custom domain.

As far as I know, if you register elsewhere and set up DNS so, you can still get one Gmail account against the domain name for "free" -- in contrast to when Google was rolling out Google Apps to the public and offered first 50, then 25, then 10 "free" Gmail accounts to a unpaid Google Apps account so configured.