Yahoo! kills classic Mail, will start scanning users’ emails to place ads

Yahoo! has confirmed that is set to kill the classic version of its Mail service and anyone who hasn’t already will have to make the upgrade or abandon Yahoo! all together.

Under Marissa Mayer’s leadership, the company rolled out a revamped version of Mail last year but, until now, has allowed people to continue using the old interface.

In order to make the upgrade however, you will have to sign a new terms of service agreement, which allows Yahoo! to “scan and analyze all incoming and outgoing communications content sent and received from your account.”

Doing so, it says, means that it will provide you with “provide personally relevant product features and content, to match and serve targeted advertising and for spam and malware detection and abuse protection.” Sounds a little like Gmail, doesn’t it?

That makes sense though, as there aren’t really that many other ways for dedicated email services to survive. Given that the upgrade comes with a cleaner interface, which better matches the company’s mobile apps, a little targeted advertising probably won’t be seen as a massive compromise to have to make. That means you probably shouldn’t expect a massive exodus from the service, although a large influx of new users is, if anything, more unlikely.