Yahoo Mail redesign becomes permanent, privacy issues surface

Yahoo officially put the old interface for Yahoo Mail to rest Monday.

But the company's new webmail look isn’t the only change that users will have to get used to. Users will have to consider conditions in the service’s privacy agreement that allows Yahoo to scan their email so the search company can insert targeted ads.

However, users may opt out of targeted ads in their Yahool Mail at the little known Ad Interest Manager page.

Yahoo rolled out its webmail redesign in December and gave its users six months to make the switch from its “classic” interface to the new one.

The new interface has a cleaner look, with fewer buttons and larger area for reading and composing messages. Thumbnails make previewing attachments easier, too.

Attachments are also easier to handle thanks to integration with Dropbox. From inside Yahoo Mail’s inbox, you can add attachments to your messages directly from Dropbox and save them to the storage service from emails you receive.

When you choose to use Yahoo’s revamped interface, you also agree (unless you opt out) to let the service scan email arriving in your inbox for, among other things, information that can be used to target advertising to you.

That practice isn’t a Yahoo exclusive. Gmail also does that routinely—a practice that Microsoft has condemned in its Scroogled advertising campaign. However, Google users also may opt out on Google's Ads Settings page.

The targeted-ads process is totally automated so there’s no human interaction involved, but that doesn’t make the practice less creepy to some.

:story: PCWorld