Communication Products

This policy describes our current privacy practices for the Yahoo Communications brands, websites, features, products, apps, software and other services (“Communications Services”). All information collected, provided to Yahoo or stored in your Yahoo Account will be treated, used and protected in accordance with the Yahoo Privacy Policy. This information may change as Yahoo revises these Communications Services by adding or removing features or using different service providers. Some Communications Service features are only available if you are a registered user.

This page describes specific privacy practices with respect to Yahoo Address Book, Yahoo Calendar, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger or other instant messaging services and Yahoo Notepad.

Information Collection and Use Practices - General

  • Yahoo’s systems may analyze and store all communications content, including email content from incoming and outgoing mail, as well as incoming and outgoing messages to messaging apps.
  • We also may analyze and store all other content and other information you provide when you use our Communications Services. This can include information within or about the content you provide, such as photos, attachments and other communications.
  • Our systems may analyze all communications content (such as Mail, Groups, Calendar, Address and Messenger content including instant messages and SMS messages) for the purposes outlined in our main Privacy Policy page. If you provide Yahoo access to your Gmail data, please click here for more information on how we treat your Gmail data.
  • This analysis may occur on all communications content as it is sent, received, and when it is stored, including content from services synced with your account. For example, in certain use cases, we run automated algorithms on commercial communications to create generic templates of such documents (e.g., using common language to identify the elements of an airline receipt). These templates do not include the recipient’s personal data. Yahoo employees may review the templates to improve our services and our personalization of your experience. We may also manually review certain communications to improve our masking template capabilities, develop tools to assist the automated scanning process, improve segmentation and other automated functions and create generic templates of such documents (e.g., using common language to identify the elements of an airline receipt). Our anti-spam team may review messages flagged as “spam” or “not spam” to improve our anti-spam defenses.
  • Our Communications Service may include interactive features from third-parties as well. We do not share information that personally identifies you (such as information like your first and last name or email address) with the third-parties without your consent.
  • This information may also be used for interest-based advertising. To learn more, you can visit Yahoo’s control tool for interest-based advertising.
  • Please read the FAQ to learn more about our Communications Services.

Communication Features

  • Users with whom you communicate with may opt to save your conversations even if you delete them.
  • If you have SMS message forwarding enabled, these messages may be stored in your conversation history on that device.
  • We may store the contacts and calendar details from Communications Services like Mail, Address Book, Messenger Contacts, Groups, and when you synchronize data from your devices (for example, your phone contacts). 
    • Synced contacts from third-party services may re-populate after you delete them unless you disable the syncing feature.

Sharing and Disclosure to Third-Parties

  • Connecting your account to a third-party service may require that you share information with that third party (for example, your email address). You can view and disable third-party account links by visiting the accounts section in the Communications Service(s) you may use.
  • Certain information from your account may be visible to others such as your name, nickname, avatar, image, gender, city, online status, contact information associated with your Yahoo account or other information that you have chosen to make public.
  • If you post information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.
  • Your messages are shared only with the people you want. Yahoo may anonymously share specific objects from a message (such as keywords, package tracking and product price, name, identification and other data) with third-parties in order to enhance your user experience, develop new services and features and provide targeted ads.

Yahoo Mail 

Premium Services

  • Premium services, such as Mail Plus, are available for a fee.
  • When you sign up for premium services, you will be asked to enter your credit card information. Yahoo takes your security seriously. We use industry-standard SSL (Secure Socket Layer) to encrypt the transmission of your credit card and other information used when ordering premium services.

Information Collection and Use Practices

  • Yahoo Mail includes IP addresses in outgoing mail message headers, as specified by standard Internet protocol.
  • Yahoo may share certain analyzed elements of your communications, such as keywords, package tracking and product identification numbers, with third-parties in order to enhance your user experience and personalize your ads and content.
  • Our automated systems analyze content in part, to provide personally relevant, enriched experiences within mail.  Enriched experiences show easy-to-read cards or similar formats within your inbox.
  • Some of these enriched experiences may include links, partnerships, or revenue sharing agreements where Yahoo receives compensation when you complete a purchase or take an action. 
  • When users click on the Spam and Not Spam buttons, information is sent to our anti-spam team or other spam compliance service providers for manual review, and aspects of these messages may be shared with the sender to reduce spam.

Practices Regarding Your Ability to Update or Delete Information

  • You can modify your settings and preferences in your Yahoo Mail account by accessing “Account information”. 

Yahoo Calendar

Information Collection and Use Practices

  • When you store appointments on Yahoo Calendar, you can enter information about the appointment, including a description, date, time, or whether the event is recurring or one-time only.

Information Sharing and Disclosure Practices

  • You can elect to make your Yahoo Calendar publicly viewable, viewable to a selected set of other users, or private (non-viewable).
  • If you allow others to view your calendar, you can choose whether each appointment is hidden, appears as "Busy," or appears with all details. You can modify the default event permission setting from the "Options" page of Yahoo Calendar. Your event permission setting change will apply to any events that you add after you have made the setting change, but will not change the setting of events that you have added previous to the change. You can also modify the permission of each event individually from the edit page for that event.

Yahoo Messenger

Versions of Yahoo Messenger released prior to December 3, 2015 are no longer supported, however you may review the privacy module here. Please upgrade to the new Yahoo Messenger.

Information Collection & Use Practices

  • We may collect information about you when you use Yahoo Messenger. We may collect information from you directly, such as your phone number, email address, photos, and, with your consent, contacts stored on your device. We may also collect information from you automatically when you use Yahoo Messenger, such as your IP address, location, analytics on app usage, device ID and type, and mobile carrier.
  • When using Yahoo Messenger, your communications content is stored on our servers and may be made searchable for you through our platforms.

Information Sharing & Disclosure Practices

  • Certain products may include features that notify other users that you are present or active in a channel, team or group.
  • When you communicate using Yahoo Messenger, we facilitate sharing communications with your friends. To make it easier for you to locate and communicate with other Yahoo Messenger users, we may, with your consent, synchronize data from your devices. Other users who have your phone number or email address may be able to discover you on Yahoo Messenger and see your certain information from such as your name, nickname, avatar, image, online status, contact information associated with your Yahoo account or other information that you have chosen to make public.
  • You can invite your friends to join Yahoo Messenger, and 1-on-1 and group conversations. Invitations may include message content, such as your name and photos.

Unsending Messages, Photos & GIFs

  • In some cases you can unsend communications content (however, we may retain copies and logs for audit and record purposes or as required by law).
  • There are some exceptions to the unsend feature, for example: 
    • Users who receive your messages, or any other content, can save or copy them, including taking a screenshot or by using some other image-capturing methods or technology. Also, if users save or copy content (including photos) before it is unsent, they may be able to access and share that content later;
    • Push notifications of new messages aren’t taken back, so users may be able to read notification snippets of unsent messages;
    • A message cannot be unsent if a friend is still using a prior version of Yahoo Messenger or goes offline before you can unsend;
    • Please review the interoperability and unsend Help pages to learn more.
  • Think before you share! Messages are sent immediately. There's no guarantee the recipients won't see the message before you unsend it.

Other

  • By using Yahoo Messenger, you acknowledge that other users of Yahoo Messenger may elect to receive a notification from Yahoo Messenger when you sign on and may send you instant messages and other information or call you via Yahoo Messenger. If you wish to block the notification feature or if you don't want to receive messages from such users, you may have the option to enable the "Ignore" or similar feature separately. Your ability to send and receive instant messages and other information may be blocked by Yahoo and other users, which may partially or wholly limit your ability to use Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo has no responsibility for assessing or resolving any disputes arising from your or any other user's ability (or otherwise) to ignore, send messages or other information, or otherwise use Yahoo Messenger.
  • Some features available in Yahoo Messenger, such as the “like” and unsend features, may not function when communicating with friends using prior versions of Yahoo Messenger (versions released prior to December 3, 2015).

Yahoo Groups

Information Sharing and Disclosure Practices

  • Messages you email to the group or that you post through the web site for a Group will always include your email address. 
    • Full headers of all email postings can be seen by anyone accessing the messages through the web site.
  • Your full email address will be visible to the owner and moderator(s) of any Group to which you belong. 
    • Some Group owners, though, may choose to give members the option to not allow their email addresses to be visible to owner and moderators. Choosing this option may limit your ability to post and take advantage of other features of the Group.
  • In using Yahoo Groups and its various tools, you may make some of your information public. You may also choose to share some of your information with other Group members.
  • When you share files, post messages, create polls, or add bookmarks to a Group to which you belong, certain information such as your name, nickname, avatar, image, online status, contact information associated with your Yahoo account or other information that you have chosen to make public may appear next to the file, message, poll or bookmark on the Groups website.
  • The personal email address of Group owners and moderators who invite members to join the Group via the "invite" tool are visible to the recipients of an invitation.
  • Certain information from your Profile may be visible to others such as your name, gender, city, online status and other information that you have chosen to make public.
  • If you post information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Practices Regarding Your Ability to Update or Delete Information

  • If you are a Group owner, you can edit or delete any posting or member in your Group. You can also completely delete your Group at any time. Group owners can also grant moderators the ability to edit or delete postings and members from the Group.
  • As a Group member, you can edit your Group memberships and preferences at any time. You can also delete your own messages from a Group.