How Many YAHOO Email Subscribers Will You Lose?

In June, Yahoo announced their plans to recycle all of their inactive Yahoo ID’s (Yahoo email accounts) starting on July 15th. If you have not logged into your Yahoo account for at least a year, and want to keep your Yahoo ID active, simply log into your Yahoo account by July 15 2013.


Bounced mail in all forms



July 15 2013  starts the 30-day end date, when theoretically:

1. All inactive Yahoo email accounts will hard bounce any email sent to them.

2. Yahoo will unsubscribe inactive accounts “from commercial emails such as newsletters and email alerts.”

3. During this time you can sign up for an inactive Yahoo email ID, however you need to  wait until August 15 2013 the drop-dead date for completion, when, according to Yahoo, it will be revealed if you actually got the Yahoo ID you asked for.

Rumor has it that recycling these inactive Yahoo accounts can lead to potential:

1. Mass identify thief:  My email back up on Amazon.com is a yahoo account, forwards to my main email.  I only got the Yahoo ID email because Amazon wanted a secondary email address.  I haven’t purchased anything from Amazon for a long while, and gee, I forgot about the account until recently when I checked my credit card statement.  I tried to log on I can’t: someone else has my old Yahoo ID and apparently, now my credit card information too.

2. Increase reports of SPAM:  The “NEW” pat@yahoo.com  didn’t subscribe to your list they certainly didn’t opt-in.

3. Hacking made easy:  Yahoo is everywhere: Using a Yahoo ID for your “professional” website is a bad idea, especially since no one emails you at that address; customers and prospects always call you or send their inquiries to a different department. The Yahoo ID attached to your site, just sat dormant and now it doesn’t even belong to you – you can remove it from your website and business cards now.

4. Deception:  Your former company insisted that everyone get Yahoo ID for company email.  You left a year ago, you never deleted your Yahoo account, and the former company has your Yahoo ID as active in their email system.  So happens the new owner of your Yahoo ID is in the same industry and realizes that they can receive their competitor’s announcements and newsletters.

5. False hope: and what about all those people who falsify their online ID’s with Yahoo, they just wanted to download a white paper, here comes more potential spam.

6. Trapped! Many ISPs  are known to turn dormant email  accounts into SPAM TRAPS.

Those are just rumors…right?

Solution: Well the obvious is to sign into your Yahoo account before July 15, if you still want it.

As an Email Marketer:

1. Review your Yahoo member lists
2. Consider a re engagement plan for those inactive ID’s.- concentrate on those who have not opened their email in the past 45 to 60 days with 2 or 3 sends.
3. Review bounces so you know what to expect.
4. Continue to delete those hard bounces and always practice good email maintenance at all times.

And for the rumors,  I suppose we’ll all have to wait and see what happens

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