Yahoo ! Disabled Email Forwarding - No way to go out

Yahoo! has disabled automatic email forwarding -- a feature that lets its users forward a copy of incoming emails from one account to another.

The company has faced lots of bad news regarding its email service in past few weeks. Last month, the company admitted a massive 2014 data breach that exposed account details of over 500 Million Yahoo users.

If this wasn't enough for users to quit the service, another shocking revelation came last week that the company scanned the emails of hundreds of millions of its users at the request of a U.S. intelligence service last year.

That's enough for making a loyal Yahoo Mail user to switch for other rival alternatives, like Google Gmail, or Microsoft's Outlook.

Yahoo Mail Disables Auto-Forwarding; Making It Hard to Leave

But as Yahoo Mail users are trying to leave the email service, the company is making it more difficult for them to transition to another email service.

That's because since the beginning of October, the company has disabled Yahoo Mail's automatic email forwarding feature that would allow users to automatically redirect incoming emails from their Yahoo account to another account, reported by the Associated Press.

All of a sudden it's under development? Here's what a post on the company's help page reads about the feature's status:

"This feature is under development. While we work to improve it, we've temporarily disabled the ability to turn on Mail Forwarding for new forwarding addresses. If you've already enabled Mail Forwarding in the past, your email will continue to forward to the address you previously configured."

In other words, only users who already had the feature turned ON in the past are out of this trouble, but users who are trying to turn ON automatic email forwarding now have no option.

Yahoo has shared the following statement about the recent move:

"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."

Yahoo is trying to save its Verizon Acquisition Deal

The move to turn off the email forwarding option could be an attempt to keep its customers’ accounts active because any damage to the company at this time is crucial when Yahoo seeks to sell itself to Verizon.

The Yahoo acquisition deal has not yet closed, and Verizon Communications has reportedly asked for a $1 Billion discount off of Yahoo's $4.83 Billion sales price.

As a workaround, you could switch on your vacation responder instead to automatically reply to emails with a note about your new email address.

Delete Your Yahoo Account Before It's Too Late

You can also forego the forwarding process and simply delete your Yahoo Mail account entirely, until and unless Yahoo disables that option, too.

As the Reg media reports that British Telecoms customers, whose email had been outsourced to Yahoo, have not been able to set up automatic email forwarding or even access the option to delete their accounts.

"Sorry, the delete feature is currently unavailable. This feature will become available by the end of September," the error message reads.

Yahoo Hacked ! Hackers Selling 200 Million Record on Dark Web

Hardly a day goes without headlines about any significant data breach. In the past few months, over 1 Billion account credentials from popular social network sites, including LinkedIn, Tumblr, MySpace and VK.com were exposed on the Internet.

Now, the same hacker who was responsible for selling data dumps for LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr and VK.com is now selling what is said to be the login information of 200 Million Yahoo! users on the Dark Web.

200 Million Yahoo! Logins for 3 BTC

The hacker, who goes by the pseudonym "Peace" or "peace_of_mind," has uploaded 200 Million Yahoo! credentials up for sale on an underground marketplace called The Real Deal for 3 Bitcoins (US$1,824).

Yahoo! admitted the company was "aware" of the potential leak, but did not confirm the authenticity of the data.

The leaked database includes usernames, MD5-hashed passwords and date of births from 200 Million Yahoo! Users. In some cases, there is also the backup email addresses used for the account, country of origin, as well as the ZIP codes for United States users.

Easily Crackable Passwords

Since the passwords are MD5-encrypted, hackers could easily decrypt them using an MD5 decrypter available online, making Yahoo! users open to hackers.

In a brief description, Peace says the Yahoo! database "most likely" comes from 2012, the same year when Marissa Mayer became Yahoo's CEO.

Just last week, Verizon acquired Yahoo! for $4.8 Billion. So, the hacker decided to monetize the stolen user accounts before the data lose its value.

When reached out, the company said in a statement:

"We are committed to protecting the security of our users' information and we take such claim very seriously. Our security team is working to determine the facts...we always encourage our users to create strong passwords, or give up passwords altogether by using Yahoo Account Key, and use different passwords for different platforms."

Use Password Managers to Secure Your Online Accounts

Although the company has not confirmed the breach, users are still advised to change their passwords (and keep a longer and stronger one using a good password manager) and enable two-factor authentication for online accounts immediately, especially if you are using the same password for multiple websites.

You can also adopt a good password manager that allows you to create complex passwords for different sites as well as remember them for you.

We have listed some best password managers here that could help you understand the importance of password manager and help you choose a suitable one, according to your requirement.

Verizon set to Buy Yahoo. .! for $5 Billion

Finally, Someone has come forward to buy Yahoo! Guess Who?

The telecommunication giant Verizon.

Yes, Verizon Communications Inc. is reportedly closing in on a deal to acquire Yahoo’s core business for about $5 Billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Since the agreement between the companies has not been finalized, it is unclear at this moment that which Yahoo's assets the deal would include.

"In order to preserve the integrity of the process, we're not going to comment on the issue until we've finalized an agreement," a Yahoo spokeswoman said in a statement provided to CNNMoney.

You might be wondering Why Verizon is buying Yahoo! Well, I’ll come to it in the second half of my article, because before discussing this point, let’s first focus on why Yahoo! wants to get acquired.

Why Yahoo Was Up For Sale?

Founded in 1995, Yahoo! was once the brightest star of the Web. But when its rivals including Google, Facebook and even few-years-old companies like Snapchat and WhatsApp have won over users, Yahoo! has not been able to maintain that glory.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer - formerly a Google executive - has spent billions on acquisitions so far to improve Yahoo's mobile products, expanding its audience by acquiring Tumblr and doubling down on premium media content.

But Mayer struggled to slow the overall ad sales decline of Yahoo! and failed.

Last Monday, the company accepted that its revenue fell 15% in the second quarter, after excluding accounting adjustments, and its operating profit fell 64%.

So, after keeping investors at bay for years, Mayer said Yahoo! would explore strategic alternatives, including selling its core assets.

Verizon has long been considered a suitable buyer for Yahoo’s Internet assets, which the telecom giant wants to combine with AOL - the American global mass media corporation bought by Verizon last year for $4.4 Billion.

Now, the two companies are in one-on-one discussions, and Verizon will reportedly acquire Yahoo! for about $5 Billion.

Here's Why Verizon Wants to Buy Yahoo!

So, why does a mobile telecom provider want to acquire the core editorial business of a failed Internet portal?

The sure short answer is:

Advertising!

With the success in the wireless industry, Verizon has been buying up Internet and ad technology companies, like AOL, to compete in a mobile advertising market dominated by two big players, Google and Facebook.

And for this same reason, it is now buying Yahoo!’s ad and content businesses.

Yahoo! has millions of users, and a collection of websites like Flickr, Tumblr, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Sports, including some digital-ad technology like Flurry and BrightRoll.

Since the growth of Verizon’s traditional telecom business has been decreased, companies like Yahoo! and AOL would necessarily help Verizon make money from digital advertising on mobile devices.

The deal would not only give Verizon a powerful collection of content and revenue from ad related to that content but also give the telecom company a considerable amount of user data to provide target advertisements to users by the telecom as well as others.

So, this is the kind of deal Verizon was interested in when it acquired Yahoo!

The Legendary Yahoo Messenger is Finally Shutting Down

One of the oldest Messenger apps is shutting down after 18 years of service. Yahoo has announced they will be signing off and closing their the app permanently on 5th August.

Yahoo messenger was originally named as “Yahoo Pager” and it was launched in 1998. It became quickly popular with its user-friendly interface and maintained a strong following over the years by introducing interesting additions to its functionality such as its famous emojis that provided its users with a unique online chat experience.

It developed a faithful user base in Asia-Pacific region and many of us have memories of the Yahoo and MSN Messenger days. Amazingly, according to Bloomberg, Yahoo Messenger still had a following among oil traders who used it to gossip and even bid on prices of commodities.

Last year, Yahoo announced a more modern and cross-platform supportive Messenger that laid the foundations of the End-of-Life for the Legacy Messenger.

Yahoo made this announcement with their official blog post, saying,

In December of 2015, we announced a brand new Yahoo Messenger for mobile, the Web and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop, built on a new modern platform. This complete revamp brings users an incredibly fast, beautiful and smart way to send — and unsend — messages, photos and animated GIFs in 1:1 and group conversations.

While today we provide basic interoperation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016. We intend to continue our focused efforts on the new Messenger, with a goal of delivering the best experience to our users.

The announcement indicates that Yahoo is reviewing its future projects and it wants to develop and enhance new apps.

After August 5th, anyone still using the legacy Messenger will no longer be able to log in or send messages. Same applies on messages sent through third-party apps built on top of Yahoo’s API. The new Messenger  is available on the iOS Store and Google Play.