Is it time for telecom to quit yahoo?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Is it time for telecom to quit yahoo?

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#760051 12-Feb-2013 13:23

dacraka: Would anyone with a yahoo.co.nz email have been affected/need to change their password or is this just isolated to Telecom email addresses?

Pretty sure it has the some problem affecting it. Xtra email accounts are subset of all the yahoo hosted one.

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#760061 12-Feb-2013 13:38

dacraka: Would anyone with a yahoo.co.nz email have been affected/need to change their password or is this just isolated to Telecom email addresses?

That is a good question. Yahoo's recent problems have all occurred because they failed to secure subdomains. These insecure subdomains were then used to compromise logged in yahoo accounts of visiting users. If you have visited a yahoo subdomain at any point while logged in [and that subdomain was not correctly secured] then your account was vulnerable to that series of attacks. Telecom's official position so far is the Xtra attack used a similar vector.

Passwords in this kind of attack are not compromised directly. If they had access to your email they could theoretically have requested password resets for any other account you may use elsewhere. In addition they could use that as a vector to compromise your yahoo account if your yahoo reset address is set to one of those other accounts.

Therefore you should reset your passwords for any services for which your yahoo account is the password reset confirmation address.

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#760089 12-Feb-2013 14:09

Telecom press release right now saying they are starting a review of their email service. Will post details later.

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#760091 12-Feb-2013 14:21

Yes I believe it is time for them to drop Yahoo!

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#760092 12-Feb-2013 14:22

Not much more than that: http://www.telecom-media.co.nz/releases_detail.asp?id=3876&page=index

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#760094 12-Feb-2013 14:28

gzt: Not much more than that: http://www.telecom-media.co.nz/releases_detail.asp?id=3876&page=index

“When Telecom outsourced the Xtra email service to Yahoo! in 2007, it was the right thing to do at the time in terms of meeting our customers’ desire for an ongoing email service associated with their Telecom broadband account. However, the global email environment has changed markedly since then and we believe the time is right for a comprehensive review of our approach in this area.”

From that, and the quote about 2007, and a review of their approach in that area, I could see them dropping email as a service. Anyone can setup a free gmail account, although that has been the case for over a decade with hotmal and yahoo. Just wonder how long these free accounts will remain free though, as google have begun charging for some of their previously free services, and most are ad supported. It's the old, get them hooked on a free service' and then start charging, as it is too difficult to move.

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#760100 12-Feb-2013 14:34

NonprayingMantis: But now most people have a basic understanding of how to do these things so it is just unnecessary. The only reason ISPs continue to offer it I suspect is because they have a lot of customers using it and it stops them from leaving (if you were a small business with your xtra email address plastered on the side of your van, on your business cards, letter headings etc etc then it will be a very expensive process to switch email providers)

I don't agree. Most people have no idea about how to do these things.

I'll get my Dad to ring you next time he needs support.

There is a large group of people like him who know how to use what they have but coping with any change is way beyond their abilities.

He got a new PC recently and in the process of setting that up he managed to sign himself up for an outlook.com email address. He had no idea why he did this when I asked apart from to say "Microsoft told him to".

Unfortunately this is very common among those who are not PC literate and people like this are best to keep using their ISP provided email as the ISP also supports that email service for them.

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#760219 12-Feb-2013 15:45

dacraka: Would anyone with a yahoo.co.nz email have been affected/need to change their password or is this just isolated to Telecom email addresses?

Yes i was getting the spam emails from people with yahoo.com/.co.nz addresses- so not just xtra

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#760222 12-Feb-2013 15:51

gzt:

Are there any ISP's in the US using gmail standalone without apps etc? I am aware that Google was offering an ISP service a while ago but do not know if that continued.

$0.35c a month per mailbox with google apps partner edition, only avaliable via Iakno, not via google itself.
http://www.ikano.com/reseller/googleapps-key-features_reseller.asp

I recently looked into this - was thinking that google would be offering to pay the ISP for the extra advertising in the gmail/apps interface that the isp's customer gets to see.

For our network, we allow subscribers to have an @ruralkiwi.com address, but suggest that if they have kids, they should sign up for a gmail account for the literal in-house support thats avaliable. I hate dealing with email issues.

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#760364 12-Feb-2013 20:37

My parents-in-law have a Google Apps account. My wife's domain has a Google Apps account. They would never in this world be able to setup this - buying a domain, registering with Google, updating DNS, configuring email clients.

There's a place for ISP provided email. Telecom did great moving to Yahoo!. Telecom did not so well by keeping @xtra.co.nz addresses.

Here's the release:

Telecom said today it was commencing a review of email service to its broadband customers following a series of issues which have impacted negatively on the Yahoo! Xtra service over the past year.

Telecom CEO Retail Chris Quin says the company will undertake the review over the next two months.

"We share the frustration that our customers have been experiencing over recent months. We fully appreciate that repeatedly saying 'sorry' doesn't cut it anymore. We are committed to taking a close, hard look at the best way to meet our customers' email needs."

Mr Quin says the review will include a comprehensive assessment of the Yahoo! Xtra service in consultation with service provider, Yahoo!

"When Telecom outsourced the Xtra email service to Yahoo! in 2007, it was the right thing to do at the time in terms of meeting our customers' desire for an ongoing email service associated with their Telecom broadband account. However, the global email environment has changed markedly since then and we believe the time is right for a comprehensive review of our approach in this area."

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#760435 12-Feb-2013 22:43

Was talking with one of the engineers who worked n the old extra mail system and was told they spent $20mil on it before switching to yahoo... that's no insignificant figure for a free service.

Some ISPs (FYX) for example don't supply an isp email account as part of a cheaper no frills service, which is where almost all ISPs should be moving towards. There is no money in offering email, its a PITA to fight spam with opensource tools, or costs too much to deliver when using dedicated appliances (ironports etc).

Google , Yahoo, Hotmail etc are are far better positioned for mass market 97% up time mail service which the standard user needs.

Having said that I still believe business email should be hosted in house for data sovereignty reasons.

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#760445 12-Feb-2013 22:54

insane: Was talking with one of the engineers who worked n the old extra mail system and was told they spent $20mil on it before switching to yahoo... that's no insignificant figure for a free service.

Some ISPs (FYX) for example don't supply an isp email account as part of a cheaper no frills service, which is where almost all ISPs should be moving towards. There is no money in offering email, its a PITA to fight spam with opensource tools, or costs too much to deliver when using dedicated appliances (ironports etc).

Google , Yahoo, Hotmail etc are are far better positioned for mass market 97% up time mail service which the standard user needs.

Having said that I still believe business email should be hosted in house for data sovereignty reasons.

That is essentially where YahooXtra email is at. Mauricio mentioned/inferred that they perhaps should not have used xtra.co.nz addresses, I assume, so as to provide an email outlet, but not be tied to it in the users eye? Perhaps the way of the future is for an ISP not to provide email, but to have easy access for customers to join Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail at the ISP website, along with support links, and to provide basic email support for these three options? That may help to "provide" email but not to "own" it as such?

insane

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#760453 12-Feb-2013 23:14

tdgeek:
insane: Was talking with one of the engineers who worked n the old extra mail system and was told they spent $20mil on it before switching to yahoo... that's no insignificant figure for a free service.

Some ISPs (FYX) for example don't supply an isp email account as part of a cheaper no frills service, which is where almost all ISPs should be moving towards. There is no money in offering email, its a PITA to fight spam with opensource tools, or costs too much to deliver when using dedicated appliances (ironports etc).

Google , Yahoo, Hotmail etc are are far better positioned for mass market 97% up time mail service which the standard user needs.

Having said that I still believe business email should be hosted in house for data sovereignty reasons.

That is essentially where YahooXtra email is at. Mauricio mentioned/inferred that they perhaps should not have used xtra.co.nz addresses, I assume, so as to provide an email outlet, but not be tied to it in the users eye? Perhaps the way of the future is for an ISP not to provide email, but to have easy access for customers to join Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail at the ISP website, along with support links, and to provide basic email support for these three options? That may help to "provide" email but not to "own" it as such?

Absolutely , but it won't be an easy shift for some. When last did you try call Google, Yahoo or MS for phone support, its basically non existent , so perhaps email could be offered, but at a cost?

Something for each ISP to weigh up I guess.

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#760454 12-Feb-2013 23:23

Go back to microsoft I say but instead of XtraMSN, Use outlook.com :D

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#760456 12-Feb-2013 23:40

insane:

Absolutely , but it won't be an easy shift for some. When last did you try call Google, Yahoo or MS for phone support, its basically non existent , so perhaps email could be offered, but at a cost?

Something for each ISP to weigh up I guess.

That is just it. ISPs basically provide email to the masses and it comes with free personalised support, and they are the only ones who do this. The free third party email providers like gmail essentially have no support apart from online documentation. They are also not really free, as they are ad supported, and can collect personal information to sell to their advertisers.
There are some hosts in NZ who do speicalise in email plans,and setting up people with domain based email accounts, but there is probably very little money in it due to the high support costs.And people are probably not prepared to pay much, as they can get a free address with an ISP.

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