UPDATED: If You Have A Yahoo Or Rogers E-Mail Account

... you should be very, very concerned about the extortionate play they are making for your data, including your emails, your contact lists, indeed, your very identity.

Over the past week, Rogers and other Yahoo e-mail users have been receiving pop-up messages when they log in, outlining new unified terms of service that will apply to all Oath-owned sites. One of the terms specifies that Oath analyzes “content and information,” including e-mails, photos and attachments “when you use our services.” It explains, “This allows us to deliver, personalize and develop relevant features, content, advertising and services.”

The message concludes by stating that users “will eventually need to agree to the new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy in order to continue to use our services.” [Emphasis added]

If that last part sounds like extortion, that's because it is. Clearly, in attempting an end-run around future crack-downs on digital privacy, the company that administers both services, Oath, thinks it is being clever.

Stephen, a Rogers internet subscriber from Toronto who did not want his last name used because it could jeopardize his employment, said in an interview he has not been able to get satisfactory answers from Rogers on whether he could continue to use his e-mail account without being tracked.

“My concern is more about my data being fodder for behaviour manipulation, as we’ve seen with Cambridge Analytica.”

While Oath claims that account-holders will be able to opt out of this intrusion, there is nothing on its site to suggest it; likely they are hoping for a measure of indifference or forgetfulness as this story fades from the public view.

Globe and Mail letter-writer Jacques Soucie of Newmarket, Ontario, is not likely to be one who simply shrugs her shoulders:

After reading Christine Dobby’s article about Rogers’s invasive e-mail terms-of-service changes, I attempted to “adjust [my] customer preferences and settings” as the Rogers spokesperson you quoted suggested (Rogers E-Mail Users Hit With New Service Terms That Allow Data Monitoring, April 20). No way could I manage to find out how to do this, even after several Internet searches. I did, however, find this appalling item in the terms of service for Oath, the company to which Rogers has outsourced its e-mail service:

“Personal Data of Friends and Contacts. By using the Services, you agree that you have obtained the consent of your friends and contacts to provide their personal information (for example: their email address or telephone number) to Oath or a third party, as applicable, and that Oath or a third party may use your name to send messages on your behalf [emphasis added] to make the Services available to your friends and contacts …”

Daring to send messages on my behalf to my friends and contacts? This is an incredible invasion of privacy that should never be permitted. How can we fight back against this kind of intrusion?

My wife, who has a Yahoo account, is now in the process of migrating to Gmail. I would strongly suggest that others who take their privacy seriously consider similar measures.

UPDATE: Over at the Star, Ellen Roseman has this advice for Rogers Yahoo customers:

Rogers Yahoo email customers need to press for more information. What is the deadline for agreeing to Oath’s updated terms? Will they be cut off without access if they don’t agree? Can they get help moving all their emails to another provider?