By now you may already know that Yahoo had its 3 billion users hacked back in 2013 and how it worked as a US government tool by allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to scan the email accounts of millions of Yahoo users worldwide. You may also know that Yahoo suffered a massive data breach in which more than 5 million of its accounts were stolen, that happened in 2014 but the company didn’t bother to inform users until last month.
Now that the history of Yahoo’s mismanagement has become obvious, it’s time to ditch Yahoo! and look for an email service provider that takes privacy seriously. It’s time to move from a provider that actually make money off of invading your privacy.
1 ➢ Log into your Yahoo! email account
If you don’t remember your password, reset it and get a new one.
2 ➢ Go to Account Termination link
You can find the Account Termination link by clicking on Help or by simply click here.
Now go to Register or delete the account, after that click closing your Yahoo account’ and click the ‘account termination’ link, (middle of the page).
3 ➢ Enter your login credential again
You have to log in once again in order to prevent accounts from being deleted if they’re left open somewhere.
4 ➢ Account notification termination
Deleting your Yahoo account will not allow you access to all Yahoo services including Yahoo Mail, Flickr, contacts and more. Unsubscribe from any paid services before deleting your account otherwise, you could still be charged.
5 ➢ Enter your password
In order to confirm the deletion, you will need to enter your password again You will also need to fill out the CAPTCHA. Click ‘yes’ to delete the account.
Your account details will be saved by Yahoo! for about 90 days but your deletion process is not reversible.
Which email service should be used to protect our online privacy?
Privacy on the Internet is an oxymoron term, however, there are people starving to convert the dream of Internet privacy into a reality. Currently, there are two promising providers. ProtonMail and Tutanota both provide encrypted zero knowledge email services in the post-Snowden era.
An exclusive talk with ProtonMail co-founder on Yahoo!’s privacy and security breach:
When it comes to online security and privacy HackRead believes in keeping our readers up to date and for that, we got in touch with the co-founder of ProtonMail Andy Yen. Andy Yen believes that Yahoo!’s unprecedented cooperation with the NSA is not shocking at all. Whistleblower Edward Snowden taught us that US-based tech giants and telecom firms collaborated with the NSA.
“This should really come as no surprise because we already saw from the Snowden leaks that most major US tech companies and telecoms have collaborated with the NSA in the past when issued secret court orders. However, the recent Yahoo case is unprecedented because active surveillance and interception were performed on ALL Yahoo users, and not just a targeted subset. This includes even the hundreds of millions of Yahoo users based in Europe and Asia who are technically outside of US jurisdiction,” Yen told HackRead.
Mr. Yen feels he has ample reason to suspect that both Google and Microsoft also have cooperated with the US government. We at HackRead share that suspicion and think that this is not the end of this scandal. We will keep our readers up to date in the coming months.
“I believe that similar active surveillance capabilities must have also been introduced to Gmail and Outlook email at around the same time because it seems unlikely that the NSA would target Yahoo but ignore Gmail, the largest email provider in the world. It is telling that Marissa Mayer decided to comply with the order because, in the view of Yahoo’s legal counsel, a successful challenge to the order could not be mounted. The scary thing is, this is probably a correct assessment, so we can assume that both Google and Microsoft were also unable to mount successful challenges to the order.” – Mr. Yen to HackRead.
Mr. Yen explains that he feels optimistic that users will switch to products from Europe and Asia because of this scandal.
“I think this case confirms what has been suspected since the Snowden leaks, which is that ultimately, US tech companies can be co-opted, willingly or unwillingly into the US global surveillance apparatus, and it should be assumed that any data processed by US tech giants are also available to US intelligence. In the long run, I believe this will lead consumers in Europe and Asia to look to European developed alternatives to US tech companies, such as using ProtonMail encrypted email instead of Gmail, in a bid to ensure that consumer privacy rights are respected.”
Update: 9:35 PM Thursday, February 16, 2017, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Earlier today, Yahoo issued warning notifications to users about yet another data breach during 2015-16. The warning notification sent by Yahoo to the affected users read:
“Based on the on-going investigation, we believe a forged cookie may have been used in 2015 or 2016 to access your account.”
This is yet another reason for users to permanently delete their Yahoo account and move to some other email service.
