If you happen to be a Yahoo.com or AOL.com email owner, then theres a chance that your emails have been scanned or even read by employees of the company to figure out your shopping and other online habits which is then sold to advertisers.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo and AOL owner, the Oath unit of Verizon Communication Inc., has been pitching advertisers a service that scans more than 200 million inboxes for data based on consumer buying habits.
The service works by scanning Yahoo and AOL email users inboxes so as to identify those who buy certain service or receive some targeted commercial correspondence. For example, those who receive email from AliExpress or Gearbest will be identified as those interested in shopping, while those who receive mail from Uber or Lyft will be identified as those who patronise ride-sharing service.
Tagging data is placed on those users computers according to their interests so that advertisers can specify or target adverts to them.
"Email is an expensive system," Dough Sharp, VP of data, measurements and insights at Oath, told the The Wall Street Journal. "I think it's reasonable and ethical to expect the value exchange, if you've got this mail service and there is advertising going on."
Stringent privacy rules and the clamour for privacy by users has made the practice of scanning users inboxes for targeted ads fall out of practice. The Wall Street Journal says the practice of scanning users inboxes raises concerns about data privacy in the industry.
During these email scans, there are chances that some of the mails might have been read by human as Oath's privacy policy allows for Yahoo employees to review sections of some commercial emails.