Charity auctions for select ymail & rocketmail addresses
- Posted June 25th, 2008 at 4:08 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General, New Stuff
If you were thinking about moving to one of the ymail or rocketmail addresses, but simply couldn’t decide which address to pick, you are in luck. The Yahoo! Mail team, along with help from the folks from eBay’s Giving Works team, are auctioning off select ymail and rocketmail IDs for charity.

Not only do the proceeds go to charity, but you get the added benefit of making a statement with every email you send. Maybe you’d like to be pinkribbon at ymail or rocketmail to show support for breast cancer research. How about supporting the World Wildlife Fund by opting for oceanadvocate? As an added bonus, each account will come with 5 years of Mail Plus (that’s a $100 value). There are lots to choose from, so check them out!

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
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- 21 Comments
June 25th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
bring back classic yahoo mail classic.
please
June 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Lordy, I don’t understand why Yahoo doesn’t solve the problems they have now………which are major……..before taking on yet another venture. No doubt a worthy cause but I wonder if “here we go again”.
I agree with phatlad! Please work on a rollback to before Yahoo totally ruined Yahoo Classic.
Please.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I agree with Cheryl… This is a worthy cause, but I think it detracts from Yahoo Mail’s focus on providing features on par with their competitors… Most importantly: IMAP, which Gmail currently provides for free.
Yahoo is a great company, with great people, and a first rate webmail interface. I’m sure that you have people on staff right now who can code and implement an IMAP feature. Please let them do that so that we can all benefit from their work and get back to status quo with the Gmail users who enjoy the convenience of IMAP right now.
Why this isn’t a priority for Yahoo I can’t understand.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:52 am
cheryl & em,
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I wouldn’t exactly call this a “venture”. It’s a project put together by some folks from Yahoo! for Good and Mail marketing. It’s not taking any product or engineering people away from Mail.
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Ryan
June 26th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I thought “Forward as Attachment” was going to be preserved in the Classic upgrade. NOT IF YOU’RE ON A MAC, I GUESS! How is the elimination of this feature supposed to be an improvement??
June 27th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Shouldn’t those addresses be reserved for / donated to those very charities? By “auctioning” them you’re just opening up an opportunity for impostors posing as a charity. I’m sure the 419ers & co. will love it.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Marjolein,
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It’s highly unlikely that people would mistake these addresses as being from the actual charity. The charitable organizations have their own websites (and domain based email addresses). For example, the proceeds from the “pinkribbon” addresses go to Breast Cancer Research Foundation (www.bcrfcure.org).
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Ryan
June 27th, 2008 at 8:29 am
skepticalthinker,
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I’ll look into whether there is another workaround for the Mac faithful.
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Ryan
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June 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
The IMAP complaint is legit. Come on Yahoo. That’s what this user wants. With my tech loving friends is the #1 reason longtime yahoo mail readers leave for gmail. Great cause btw.
Steve
June 27th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
@Steve
My sentiments exactly, and I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who thinks this. This is a legitimate complaint, and it’s a reason that Gmail is catching up to and will pass Yahoo Mail one day. What shame, because Yahoo Mail has been one of the first and certainly the best webmail experiences.
The more I see Gmail users enjoying IMAP, the more upset I get that Yahoo doesn’t have it, even for a fee, which I’ll even pay! Lord knows, I’ve helped set up at least a dozen of my friends on Gmail IMAP and they love it. Then they ask me if Yahoo has it since I use Yahoo and I have to say no. And then they ask me why not, since I know all about Gmail… See where this is going?
I appreciate your responses on this blog Ryan, because it’s the only feedback that Yahoo feels worth giving us on this issue, and even so I honestly feel like I’m talking in a void because weeks going on months have gone by and nothing’s changed nor has any announcement of IMAP been given. So far, Yahoo’s approach to IMAP is to put a internet shortcut on the desktop.
Why don’t we have IMAP?
It’s either:
1) Too expensive for you to implement
2) Going to keep people from looking at the webpage and the ad banners. (Kind of a strange reason because if you pay the 20 dollars a year, there are no ad banners)
3) Not technically feasible for you to do.
You’re letting us down Yahoo, and if any of the above are the case, then do us users a favor and tell us the truth. Keeping us in the dark doesn’t help any, especially when Gmail already offers free IMAP.
The Charity Auction is a great cause. I think people would bid higher if you offered IMAP with these addresses. I know I would.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Y! Mail has been trashed by some well-thinking but very out-of-touch people. I would love to contribute to a cause, sure, but if I’m paying for substandard services as well, that’s just not acceptable. I don’t feel I should have to pay a lot of coin for email anyhow, given that Y! and Google aren’t exactly holding up signs on the main drag asking for food. I’ll look at it, butttt… I dunno on this one…
June 30th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Wait, why are u all complaining abt something thats beyond your control? Deal with it and move on or dont use it at all. Not everything that happens has to do with you. Remember the world does not revolve around you altho some of you like to think it does.
This is a good thing…its for charity people
June 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Will everyone please stop bothering Ryan about IMAP.
He was told by Yahoo! upper management not to respond to such inquires.
Thank You
June 30th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Please!!! If you don’t like nor want this service don’t buy it! Why are these comments even on this board? Geez.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:17 am
@Joseph
How would you know that’s what Ryan was told? And no, I won’t stop “bothering” Ryan about IMAP. It’s a feature that we want, even if you don’t want it or care, and if anyone besides Ryan @Yahoo! reads this blog, maybe they can see that there’s user demand for this feature from LOYAL users. Gmail rolled out MAP last October and I’m still with Yahoo.
@Joan
Who said anything about “buying” the service? Yahoo is currently free. So is Gmail. However, Gmail offers things for free, like IMAP, that you can’t even get when you “pay” for Yahoo!.
Furthermore, you seem to conveniently ignore the portion of my post where I said that Yahoo has the best web interface for email by far. I have praised Yahoo for having smart people. I have praised Yahoo for the hard work that has gone into the “New” Mail.
These comments are on the board because Ryan is the Community Manager for Yahoo! Mail.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
I agree with EM’s point that Yahoo has the best Webmail interface out there.
Isn’t IMAP already running on the mobile clients?
July 8th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I pay for Yahoo! to host my domain name and provide e-mail service. I don’t feel I get much for what I pay. The biggest issue I have is: if I use Mac’s e-mail package and send an e-mail through Yahoo!, it shows my Yahoo! e-mail address and not the e-mail address of the domain name I am paying for.
Generally, it seems to me, Yahoo! is trying to find ways to nickel and dime folks for “services” that are not up to standard (much less cutting edge). When I first arranged for Yahoo! to host my domain name it was cutting edge.
The Web has evolved. Yahoo! has not.
Their is a lot to like about Yahoo!, but delivering to clients doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Lastly, I don’t feel I need to be defensive about using a Mac. Yahoo! doesn’t work all that well with Macs. However, like it or not, Macs are mainstream. I am over 60 years old, I own a Mac because Consumer Reports rated it highly. If Yahoo! doesn’t want to be Mac / Firefox friendly it sends a signal that Yahoo! is not adaptive; does Yahoo! want to live in the past? Optimizing Yahoo! for one environment will inevitably cut Yahoo! off from growth and innovation.
Bring back the old Yahoo! where the focus wasn’t exposing people who pay for premium services to adds.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hello:
i registered some mails in Yahoo (@ymail.com) and i want to participate in Yahoo Mails Charity auction. Can i sell my registered mails?
thanks.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Yahoo should change the pictures on http://www.yahoomail.com . It is annoying to see the same foto on the site for 4-5 months everytime you are at the login screen at http://www.yahoomail.com or http://www.ymail.com
Is Yahoo spending less on paying these models so they decided to stick on one photo and one model on their Internet World facing mail portal??
August 7th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Ryan,
Do you have any kind of idea, or timeline, regarding IMAP implementation—even for Plus users? It’s the elephant in the room, especially since it’s already been implemented with the iPhone and Zimbra Desktop.
Seriously. Where is IMAP?
August 17th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I’m switching over to Gmail for IMAP service on my Mac. I don’t want to but what else is there to do. Has anyone used a Rocketmail account yet. Like it? Hate it?