Yahoo! assures it has ID recycling under control

Yahoo! has allayed fears of detractors who believe its new recycled ID system will expose users to hackers. The assurances from the web company comes even as Yahoo’s move to free up old, inactive IDs has drawn flak from the tech world.

The Internet company assured in a statement that it is committed to help users make that transition to take up a new email ID. “Our goal with reclaiming inactive Yahoo! IDs is to free-up desirable namespace for our users. We’re committed and confident in our ability to do this in a way that’s safe, secure and protects our users’ data,” said the company.

It went on to say that it will be cleaning up any personal and private content associated with these inactive Yahoo! accounts someone might want to take up. Since there are no mailboxes associated with these inactive accounts, the cleaning up will be easy to do. Information of the previous account holder will not be visible to the new one, who will receive a squeaky-clean inbox.

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Bad idea?

Now while many might think this idea is a downright silly one, Yahoo! seems to believe it will lure users back into its fold and regain its lost glory from 15 years ago. The fears of naysayers are not unfounded. Wired writer Mat Honan, who has been a victim of a hacker account, writes that the idea is a “spectacularly bad” idea. A scenario that could come up is of people who use Yahoo! IDs as a back-up for say, their Gmail ones, he says.

A lot of users tie their accounts on various mail services to one. For example, your Yahoo! ID could be where Gmail will send you an email if you forget your password on it. Now, if someone has taken over your inactive Yahoo! ID, he or she could easily try to access your other email accounts, your online banking details and more.

The thought is a scary one, but Yahoo! says that the company is aware of it. Identity theft is a possibility that we are aware of and we’ve gone through a bunch of different steps to mitigate that concern," said Dylan Casey, a Senior Director for Consumer Platforms. “We put a lot of thought, a lot of resources dedicated to this project.”

Yahoo! will be freeing up IDs lying dormant and unused for over a year so that users who’ve always wanted a simple, easy to remember ID can get it on the service. Users will have to go through a procedure over a period of two months to get an ID of their choice. By mid-July, Yahoo! will allow users to stake claim on an ID and in a month’s time, users will be notified if they’ve received the ID or not.

In the statement, Yahoo! assures that it’s taking steps for a smooth transition. “We will have a 30-day period between deactivation and before we recycle these IDs for new users. During this time, we’ll send bounce back emails alerting senders that the deactivated account no longer exists. We will also unsubscribe these accounts from commercial emails such as newsletters and email alerts, among others,” the statement says. Yahoo! adds that it will be notifying merchants, e-commerce sites, financial institutions, social networks, email providers and other online properties about these recycled accounts.

Yahoo! has been trying to fix something that isn’t broken in the hopes that its high-risk move will pay off and users will flock back to the service again. There are far too many complications and the pay-out may be low. Let’s hope Yahoo! can turn its fortunes around with the lure of simple email IDs.

(With inputs from Reuters)