Last week Yahoo announced that it would be resetting user IDs that have been inactive for 12 months, this is being done to free up usernames that active users have always wanted but have not been able to claim because they were already taken. Some people have voiced concerns that hackers might misuse these recycled user IDs, that it could lead to online identity theft. For example if one such ID is linked to a Google account and it is claimed by someone else, they can simply request a new password to be sent to the e-mail account to gain access to the Google account. Today in an interview with Reuters, Yahoo’s Dylan Casey downplayed these concerns.
Dylan, who is the senior director for consumer platforms, says that Yahoo is aware of this possibility and that they have taken different steps to mitigate this concern. Dylan says that majority of these inactive accounts are actually linked with other Yahoo services, only 7% of them are said to be linked to an e-mail address. Yahoo is working with Google, Amazon and other major internet companies to reduce the risk of identity theft. He says that they can’t ensure with “100% certainty that it’s absolutely impossible for anything to happen,” but Yahoo is going to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure that users don’t have to face a bad situation due to this.
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