Yahoo! Mail Blog
The latest scoop on Yahoo! Mail product updates, new releases, bug fixes,

Check out the latest episode of Upgrade Your Life on Yahoo! News where you can get the latest tips and tricks for managing your emails! Learn about how best to protect yourself from spam and bacn,  unsubscribe from mailing lists,  track all of your online purchase receipts, keyboard shortcuts in Yahoo! Mail and much, much more!

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Today Yahoo! Mail and the email industry took a big, collective step towards helping end phishing. Phishing is when someone misrepresents their identity and sends you a fake email that is designed to look like it was sent by a legitimate institution. It is one of the biggest online threats today and it’s been a tough challenge to solve because it’s multifaceted from a technical standpoint, and unfortunately, still lucrative from a phishers’ standpoint.

Yahoo!, along with many other companies, has been hard at work on something we believe will be critical in helping make email safer and more secure. Today, the DMARC consortium launched publicly. DMARC is the result of several major technology providers and large email senders (like Bank of America) coming together to fight a common enemy: phishing.  Though DMARC came together relatively recently, the genesis of the idea started several years ago when we joined with PayPal and eBay in 2007 to block malicious messages through the use of DomainKeys authentication, a technology we helped build and popularize.  From there, the idea snowballed (in a good way!) and we began talking to other companies to see how we could leverage this standard for the larger industry.

Right now, Yahoo! Mail uses existing standards like DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which use cryptography to prove the identity of the sender domain. DMARC builds upon the foundation of DKIM and SPF and creates an even stronger foothold to fight against phishing.  Currently with DKIM and SPF, an email can prove it came to Yahoo! Mail from a trusted sender. But, with DMARC, the email now has to prove it’s coming from a trusted sender – otherwise, it will get thrown out & never reach a user’s mailbox.

Big companies who send lots of emails already had this capability, but thousands and millions of smaller companies don’t have the resources. DMARC gives senders of all sizes a way to specify what their authentication policies are, thus ensuring their emails are reaching the right people.

We block millions of phishing emails a day using these standards, and route millions more into spam folders instead of user’s inboxes. We’re proud of that; but we’d like to block all email that is lying about where it comes from, without blocking good mail. In order to do that, we need to make it much easier for all companies to use these technologies, and that’s what DMARC is about.

We’re glad that DMARC has gone public and stay tuned over the coming year as we continue to work with DMARC.

- The Yahoo Mail Team

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Online account compromise occurs regularly and will probably continue in the foreseeable future. Often hackers employ botnets to hijack accounts from millions of unsuspecting consumers. In turn, these hijacked accounts are sold and used to initiate email scams, with messages seemingly sent from the legitimate account owners to their contacts. Scams can range from the less harmful “check this cool stuff” advertising spam to the more damaging “send money to help your friend” email. Worse still, the scam emails may contain malicious links that lead to the installation of malware on computers, which then makes the computers part of the ever-growing botnet networks.

To thwart account compromise, Yahoo! is introducing a stronger user authentication feature that aims to prevent account hijackers with a stolen password from accessing a person’s account. If you have a Yahoo! account, you can now further protect it by activating this new second sign-in verification feature from Yahoo! Account Info. As part of the process, you will be required to add a mobile phone number to your account and verify it via SMS.

Once the feature is turned on, any suspicious account sign-in attempt will be challenged by a second sign-in verification beyond the initial password validation. To confirm the legitimacy of the sign-in attempt, you or the hijacker will have to answer your account security question or enter a verification code that will be sent to your mobile phone. Presumably, only you, as the legitimate user, can sign in. Account hijackers will be blocked since they neither know your security answer nor possess your mobile phone. In short, this second sign-in verification step acts as an additional, stronger “beyond-the-password” challenge against any unauthorized access attempt. And our systems are also capable of other refinements to accomplish our ultimate goal: to block all account hijackers from accessing Yahoo! accounts

Given the complexity of behind-the-scenes working systems, we are offering this feature first to users residing in the United States, Canada, India, and the Philippines. We will be extending this feature gradually to all worldwide users by March 2012. As we continue to improve how to better prevent account compromise and keep you aware of any suspicious account activity, you can enact stronger protection on your account by turning on the second sign-in verification feature and by monitoring your recent sign-in activity.

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Yesterday Yahoo! announced a big milestone in the fight against spam – we were awarded a $610 million judgment against spammers responsible for creating a fake Yahoo! lottery email scheme. This scheme was perpetrated against email users and led them to believe that they were being offered a lottery prize from Yahoo!. You can read about the actual case and the judgment issued by a New York judge here.

As a leader in anti-spam protection, we are constantly looking at how we can win the war on spam, and take several different approaches to help keep our 300-million Yahoo! Mail users as safe as possible. On the technology front, we are continually updating our technology engine to stay one step ahead of spammers. In fact, Yahoo! Mail blocks more than 600 billion spam messages each and every month (that’s over 7.2 TRILLION spam messages we block each year.) And, since introducing an updated version of Yahoo! Mail in May this year, we’ve reduced the amount of spam reported by our Mail users by an additional 60%.

More importantly, the ruling shows that Yahoo! goes after spammers. In a big way. We initially started building this specific case back in 2008 and have diligently been pursuing it since then. Why? Because we are vigilant about protecting you, every other Yahoo! User and the online industry in general. We do not, nor will we in the future, hesitate to bring legal action against wrong doers who are engaging in fraudulent activities across our platforms.

Is the fight against spam over? Not by a long shot. Every day the spammers try to figure out how to stay one-step ahead of the good guys, and every day Yahoo! employs the latest technology we can to stop them.

But what we can say is that yesterday Yahoo! won a major round against spammers.

- The Yahoo Mail Team

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Many of you may already be familiar with our Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger apps on mobile. Today, we are adding a new product to our mobile communications suite.

For those heavy texters out there, we are excited to introduce Hub, a fast and easy-to-use mobile messaging app that allows you to send text messages and have group conversations for free. Hub allows you to easily add participants to any conversation thread so it’s easy to switch from private messaging to a group conversation. Whether it is just keeping up with a close group of friends or making spontaneous plans, you no longer have to deal with scattered messages.

What’s more, Hub allows you to send messages to anyone without incurring any text messaging fees. Yes, you heard us right. There are no text messaging fees – messages are sent over WIFI or using your data connection – and Hub is device agnostic, which means you can communicate with anyone on any mobile device as long as you have their mobile phone numbers. Your friends are not required to download the app in order to reply to your messages although they are strongly encouraged to do so in order to enjoy the full feature set!

Key features of Hub include:

• Group Messaging: Enjoy group conversations with several friends at once
• Local and international SMS messages: Send text messages to other Hub users or any mobile phone for free†
• Privacy: Easily view and add participants to any conversation thread
• Message any phone: Your friends can reply with any SMS enabled mobile phone
• Instant notifications: Get push notifications for incoming messages so you never have to miss a conversation

Hub is currently in beta and is available for download on the Android Marketplace. We are extremely excited about this release and can’t wait for you to get started. Try Hub today and let us know what you think!

The Yahoo! Mail Team

Note: Hub requires Android OS 2.1+ and is currently available only to users with a US SIM card and a text plan.

†This feature is currently available when sending to numbers in Canada, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam. SMS recipients may be charged by their carriers.

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Editor’s note: Our community plays a major role in shaping the future of Yahoo! Mail, and we love it when we receive your feedback and insights. Today, we would like to introduce you to one of Yahoo! Mail’s biggest and most extraordinary fans: Mohamed Elbahy. Learn how Yahoo! Mail helps him stay connected to the people he cares about the most. Mohamed loves Yahoo! Mail so much that he created a Facebook page for it, where he not only created fun content for the full site but also answered users’ technical questions about Yahoo! Mail. We’ve migrated all of the fans on Mohamed’s page to our official Facebook page and wanted to share our appreciation to Mohamed, and give you the opportunity to get to know him!

Yahoo!: Please tell us about a little bit about yourself.

Mohamed Elbahy: I’m an accountant at one of the leading food commodities in Egypt. I graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, am 22 years old, and I love my country because of its good weather and delightful people who are always smiling.

Q: When did you start using Yahoo! products?

Mohamed Elbahy: I’ve read a lot about Yahoo!, back to its beginnings in 1994 when it was a web directory. I found it an inspiring success story, and I learned the useful lesson of how to start small and expand until you become huge.

I’ve been using Yahoo! since 2000, I think, and Yahoo! Mail since its inbox storage limit was 3 MB. All my email and interactions with my friends abroad are through Yahoo! Mail. It plays a big role in my online social life.

Q: Tell us why you chose Yahoo! Mail as your primary email?

Mohamed Elbahy: I chose Yahoo! Mail because it has a very friendly user interface, a different way of displaying email, and a lot of innovative functions and features. Also, the new Yahoo! Mail has a sophisticated engine that differentiates between your emails and spam. And of course, the unlimited storage, as we say in Egypt, is the best of the best.

Q: What inspired you to create your own Facebook page for Yahoo! Mail?

Mohamed Elbahy: I decided to create a Facebook fan page for Yahoo! Mail just because I’m one of the millions of people who loves to use Yahoo! Mail. I think I was trying to share my technical knowledge with other fans, to find solutions for any problems that they run into, and gather some feedback to improve Yahoo! services.

Q: What has been your favorite Facebook post on Yahoo! Mail Page?

Example: I especially like the Question of the Week/Email Quiz/Poll days. I get to vote and interact without much work, learn something new about email, and discover how my opinion differs from the rest of Yahoo! Mail users.

Q: What kind of new products or features would you like to see Yahoo! Mail add?

Mohamed Elbahy: I think that Yahoo! has a great position in the history of email systems, it was one of the first free email providers here in the Middle East, and continues to be a loved brand. With fierce competitors like Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail, the challenge is not easy, but I am certain Yahoo! will continue to come up with strong and innovative features. I think it would be great if Yahoo! Mail could continue releasing new themes and introduce the ability to customize them. In addition, a great way to continue the Yahoo! Mail innovation is to work on mobile technology and how it relates to Mail.

Mohamed, we want to say a sincere ‘Shokra’ for being such a loyal Yahoo! Mail user.  We appreciate all of our fans and truly appreciate your participation in our community. If you are interested in becoming a guest blogger, please send us a tweet (@yahoomail)!

Sincerely,

The Yahoo! Mail Team

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For Yahoo! Mail users on Windows Phone, we are aware of a Windows Phone synchronization inefficiency with Yahoo! Mail, which could result in larger than expected data usage for a small percentage of users. We are currently working with Microsoft to help them resolve the issue. In the meantime, here’s a link to Microsoft’s support page explaining how you can change your Windows Phone settings to reduce the frequency of your phone updating Yahoo! Mail. Please click on this link and follow the steps outlined. We recognize this might be an inconvenience, and we will provide an update soon.

The Yahoo! Mail team

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It’s that time of year again, and I can’t believe that the holiday season is already upon us. I just finished writing my Christmas Cards (yes I still do sometimes put pen to paper), but if you’re more apt to send holiday wishes using email, why not try out the Christmas stationery in the all new mail.

I’ve blogged about how to use the Yahoo! Mail stationery before, so if you need a refresher course you can read that post here. If you want to add a little Christmas cheer to your email, why not try the “Christmas”, “Happy Holidays” or even the “Snow” stationery.

You can find those, and many more by under the ‘Holidays and Events’ section of the stationery feature. To find it, when you are composing an email, just click the link labeled ‘Featured’ and select the ‘Holidays and Events’ option.

Have a merry Christmas.
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail team

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As mentioned previously, the open applications in Yahoo ! Mail are available by invitation only. However, if you are interested in participating in the limited beta, please go here and sign up to be a beta tester. We will slowly be adding new users over the coming weeks and months. Thanks very much for your interest!

- The Yahoo ! Mail Team

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As you may have heard, we’ve been working on a new smarter inbox to help make your life easier. We’re happy to announce that today, some of you will begin to experience the smarter inbox, and we wanted to give everyone a chance to see what it looks like and what it can do.

The smarter inbox experience features a new Yahoo! Mail Welcome Page which surfaces messages, information and activity updates you care about most, as well as an updated inbox and folder view that filters messages from your personal connections.

The smarter Yahoo! Mail inbox also gives you immediate access to relevant third-party applications like Flickr, Flixster and Xoopit allowing you to do much more, and be more efficient, all from within your inbox. Take a look now and let us know what you think!

- Yahoo! Mail Team

Update: We are conducting a very limited beta test right now of the open applications in Yahoo! Mail. Only our power users, who were invited into the limited beta, can test out the new applications at beta.mail.yahoo.com. We will be extending this beta test to additional users over the coming months.

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