Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo! Mail (shortened to Y! Mail) is a free web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997. According to comScore, Yahoo! Mail is the second largest web-based e-mail service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010.

Currently, Yahoo! offers three versions of Yahoo! Mail: the traditional full-page-scroll "Yahoo! Mail Classic," which continues the availability of the simpler 1997-2006 interface for the brand's considerable installed base of users, an Outlook-like Ajax interface based upon code the company acquired from Oddpost in 2004, and "Yahoo Mail Beta" which includes a brand new design, enhanced performance, improved search functionality, and improved Facebook integration. In early 2008, Yahoo! started offering unlimited mail storage to its users, in response to heated competition in the free-web mail market segment.

On June 27, 2009, Yahoo! Messenger was integrated with Yahoo! Mail. This means that Messenger and Mail are together in one place, allowing users to connect instantly with others who are online, switch between e-mail and chat, with no download or setup required. This new feature is now available for Mail Classic.

Ymail and Rocketmail

Yahoo! Mail Vice President John Kremer on June 19, 2008 announced the tripling of the size of its free online e-mail service with the launching of 2 domains as options for its 266 million users of "@yahoo.com" addresses: the new, simpler e-mail addresses ending in ymail.com and rocketmail.com. Rocketmail has a "hip retro feel" since it is a resurrected e-mail address of a 1997 Yahoo service. E-mail under the ymail and rocketmail domains will offer all the same features as the Yahoo domain, with an unlimited amount of storage capacity, with ability to instant message from within their e-mail inbox and spam and virus protection.

Spam policy

Like most free Webmail providers, Yahoo! Mail is often used by spammers to provide a "remove me" e-mail address. More often than not, these addresses are used for the express purpose of verifying the recipient's address—thus opening the door for more spam. However, Yahoo! does not tolerate this practice. It terminates accounts connected with spam-related activities without warning, and spammers lose access to any other Yahoo! services connected with their ID under the Terms of Service.

In February 2006, Yahoo! also announced their decision (along with AOL) to give some organizations the option to "certify" mail, by paying up to one cent for each outgoing message, allowing the mail in question to bypass Yahoo's and AOL's inbound spam filters.

Greylisting

Incoming mail to Yahoo! addresses can be subjected to deferred delivery as part of Yahoo!'s incoming spam controls. This can delay delivery of mail sent to Yahoo! addresses without the sender or recipients being aware of it. The deferral is typically of short duration, but may extend to several hours. Yahoo! does not specifically document this policy in detail, although some information is available.

Controversy

Username bans

On February 20, 2006, it was revealed that Yahoo! Mail was banning the word "Allah" in e-mail usernames, both separate and as part of a user name such as linda.callahan. Shortly after the news of the "Allah" ban became widespread in media, it was lifted on February 23, 2006. Along with this action, Yahoo! also made the following statement:

We continuously evaluate abuse patterns in registration usernames to help prevent spam, fraud and other inappropriate behavior. A small number of people registered for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate, and then used those IDs to post content that was harmful or threatening to others, thus violating Yahoo!'s Terms of Service.

'Allah' was one word being used for these purposes, with instances tied to defamatory language. We took steps to help protect our users by prohibiting use of the term in Yahoo! usernames. We recently re-evaluated the term 'Allah' and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse. We regularly evaluate this type of activity and will continue to make adjustments to our registration process to help foster a positive customer experience.

NNFMP

NNFMP is an internal protocol not recognised by IANA or the RFC's. Yahoo uses this protocol to internally route e-mail traffic across their network. The acronym stands for "Newman No-Frills Mail Protocol". It's a simple, high-performance protocol comparable to QMTP.

History

The history of Yahoo! Mail began with Yahoo!'s resident investment banker around November 1996, who dealt with every Yahoo! acquisition since it was created. According to them, the main question was always to consider whether to "build, buy or rent." The answer really depended on the growth of competitors and the current position of the company. The main reason to buy things was to gain speed to market.

The growth in the number of Internet users eventually boosted the e-mail technology, but also created a very competitive environment where the winner was the first company to launch a successful e-mail service and attract potential users. E-mail became one of the most important features of a Web company as it would mean regular visits from e-mail users to the website.

During the summer of 2002, the Yahoo! network was gradually redesigned. On July 2, Yahoo.com was redesigned and it was announced that other services like Yahoo! Mail would enter the same process. Along with this new design, new features were to be implemented, including new navigation tools, such as drop-down menus in DHTML and different category tabs, and a new user-customizable color scheme.

In November of the same year, Yahoo! launched another paid service: Yahoo! Mail Plus. Yahoo! Mail Plus offered a number of new features, including:

25 megabytes of e-mail storage

10 megabyte message size limit

Ability to send up to 10 attachments per e-mail

POP Access and Forwarding

Archiving of e-mail messages to a hard drive for offline access

Ability to send messages from Yahoo! Mail using other e-mail domains

200 blocked addresses and 50 filters to help screen unsolicited e-mails

No promotional taglines in messages

No account expiration.

The launch of Yahoo! Mail Plus is part of Yahoo!'s strategic initiative to offer premium services that deliver innovative, reliable and relevant services to consumers", said Geoff Ralston, senior vice president, Yahoo! Network Services, and creator of the original Yahoo! Mail technology in 1997. "In just five years, Yahoo! Mail has grown from one million to tens of millions of users, illustrating how consumers have made e-mail an essential part of their daily lives. Through Yahoo! Mail Plus, Yahoo! continues to demonstrate leadership and innovation by offering consumers the industry's most complete and powerful e-mail solution.