I like using them, because I enjoy the convenience of remote login - but I consider ANY email to have the same level of privacy as shouting across my pasture.
I delete any “personal” yahoo emails as soon as I get them, and I tell the rest of my family to do the same.
The only safe way is encryption, from your computer to theirs.
Yes. If I wouldn't put a message on a post card, I don't put it in email of any kind.
I work for a state legislature. I am able to get my state emails from a special web client, but they also come in on my blackberry so I don't use it much.
The company I used to work for had “company e-mail”, but the software was lousy. I ended up using Juno (which has easy to use “webmail” AND bulk “direct” download to HD.) So what I would do is use webmail to screen out junk, and then download the rest to HD with one click. No more than one “overnight” worth of e-mail was ever actually hanging out there on the web. That said, I also used Yahoo as a backup, as sometimes e-mail from overseas would go through intermediaries that were also carrying (or sending?) spam, and Juno would block them. I’d check Yahoo each day and if something necessary showed up there instead, I’d forward it to my Juno acct. Anything sensitive, I’d then delete off Yahoo. This was probably not the greatest setup, but it worked ok for me.
Now, as for hackers... It seems to me that these people, writers of viruses, etc., need to start receiving MUCH more severe sentences. If the sentences are severe enough, and publicized, this stuff would diminish, even if the relative likelyhood of getting caught is low. Maybe this particular example would be a good one (5 years in an Alaskan jail?)
I hope you don't think
that just because you have 'deleted' an e-mail
Yahoo doesn't retain a copy of it!