Did Yahoo break Disposable Email Addresses? (Yahoo Mail Plus, AddressGuard)
Hans Lachman
email service) has included a feature called AddressGuard
by which you can create Disposable Email Addresses.
This allows you to create and delete email aliases within
your account on the fly. It includes the ability to
do "folder delivery", i.e., automatic sorting of your
mail into folders, according to which alias the message
came in on. This means your mail is already sorted and
categorized for you before you even check it. Not only has
it been very useful, I have found it to be 100% accurate
and reliable over the years.
Unfortunately, Yahoo recently introduced a revised version
of this functionality that, in my opinion, is broken,
because it does not perform "folder delivery" 100%
reliably anymore.
In the following discussion,
"(a)" means the way it worked before, and
"(b)" means the way it works now, in the new system.
Suppose you have an alias 'boz...@yahoo.com' and
you configure it to deliver to 'Folder1'.
(a) In the old system, all mail to 'boz...@yahoo.com'
would be delivered to 'Folder1'. Period.
(b) In the new system, some mail to 'boz...@yahoo.com'
is delivered to 'Folder1' (e.g., if the address
appears on the TO or CC lines), and some mail winds up
elsewhere, most probably 'Inbox' (e.g., if the sender
put it in the BCC, or if the mail came from a group,
or mailing list, or forwarder, or remailer, or spammer).
Question: If you could choose, which would you prefer,
(a) or (b)?
A simple test case that reveals the difference
between the two methods is as follows. Create 3
aliases (e.g., 'boz...@yahoo.com', 'boz...@yahoo.com',
'boz...@yahoo.com') and configure each address for
folder delivery ('Folder1', 'Folder2', 'Folder3',
respectively). Then, send a test message, TO
'boz...@yahoo.com', CC 'boz...@yahoo.com', and
BCC 'boz...@yahoo.com'.
(a) In the old system, each of the 3 folders would
get exactly one copy of the message.
(b) In the new system, you still get 3 copies, but
they all wind up in 'Folder1'.
Question: Which way is better, (a) or (b)?
In my opinion, (a) is better because you can rely
on a simple rule working simply, keep your mail
more sensibly organized, and keep various kinds
of commercial email (both legitimate and spam)
out of your 'Inbox'. Comparatively, (b) seems
kind of haphazard and disorganized. Now, the
sender's choice of how to address the message,
and/or the method by which the message was
propagated, can override your choice of folder
for delivery.
After reviewing Yahoo's online promotional
literature about this feature, it seems clear
that, while some functionality was intentionally
removed, they still consider "folder delivery"
to be a supported feature (i.e., automatic sorting
of messages by alias, to keep your 'Inbox' clear
of such things as commercial email or what have you).
So I sent in a bug report to Yahoo Customer Care,
and they refused to regard it as a bug (despite
the fact that the new functionality contradicts
what they represent in the promotional literature).
This situation begs several questions:
- Why would Yahoo regard the new functionality as
being better than the old?
- Could it be that this is a bug, and the Customer
Care agent simply made a mistake in rejecting it?
- Or is this really the intended new functionality?
- Considering that it worked fine before, why would
they change something that was 100% accurate and
reliable into something that works "more or less"?
- Could it be that their Quality Assurance department
is understaffed, resulting in the release of a
huge new bug, and now they lack the resources to
go back and fix it, so they don't want to admit
that there's a problem? In other words, has
Yahoo entered "The Dilbert Zone"?
I really can't understand their thinking behind this,
because they didn't explain it in their response to me
(see more details at http://oz.ccnet.us/yahoomail ).
They said I can send another message to submit feature
suggestions (what should I say, "please fix what got
broken so it works normally like before"?), but they
won't accept this as a bug.
Final question: Anyone know of other email service
providers that offer "disposable email addresses"
with "folder delivery"? If so, how does theirs work?
If anyone has any insights or opinions on the above
questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Hans Lachman
ccnetbox(hyphen)gg10(atsign)yahoo(period)com
http://oz.ccnet.us
Hans Lachman
Did Yahoo break Disposable Email Addresses? (Yahoo Mail Plus,
AddressGuard)
For many years, Yahoo Mail Plus (a premium, i.e., paid,
email service) has included a feature called AddressGuard
by which you can create Disposable Email Addresses.
This allows you to create and delete email aliases within
your account on the fly. It includes the ability to
do "folder delivery", i.e., automatic sorting of your
mail into folders, according to which alias the message
came in on. This means your mail is already sorted and
categorized for you before you even check it. Not only has
it been very useful, I have found it to be 100% accurate
and reliable over the years.
Unfortunately, Yahoo recently introduced a revised version
of this functionality that, in my opinion, is broken,
because it does not perform "folder delivery" 100%
reliably anymore.
In the following discussion,
"(a)" means the way it worked before, and
"(b)" means the way it works now, in the new system.
Suppose you have an alias 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com' and
you configure it to deliver to 'Folder1'.
(a) In the old system, all mail to 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com'
would be delivered to 'Folder1'. Period.
(b) In the new system, some mail to 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com'
is delivered to 'Folder1' (e.g., if the address
appears on the TO or CC lines), and some mail winds up
elsewhere, most probably 'Inbox' (e.g., if the sender
put it in the BCC, or if the mail came from a group,
or mailing list, or forwarder, or remailer, or spammer).
Question: If you could choose, which would you prefer,
(a) or (b)?
A simple test case that reveals the difference
between the two methods is as follows. Create 3
aliases (e.g., 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com', 'bozo-f2(at)yahoo.com',
'bozo-f3(at)yahoo.com') and configure each address for
folder delivery ('Folder1', 'Folder2', 'Folder3',
respectively). Then, send a test message, TO
'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com', CC 'bozo-f2(at)yahoo.com', and
BCC 'bozo-f3(at)yahoo.com'.
Thanks,
Hans Lachman
ccnetbox(hyphen)10gg(atsign)yahoo(period)com
http://oz.ccnet.us
Sam
> [This is a re-post, to fix the places where Google obscured the text.]
Google only obscured the post when it showed it back to you. Nobody else had
to suffer Google's laughable obfuscation of posted Usenet content.
> In the following discussion,
> "(a)" means the way it worked before, and
> "(b)" means the way it works now, in the new system.
>
> Suppose you have an alias 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com' and
> you configure it to deliver to 'Folder1'.
> (a) In the old system, all mail to 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com'
> would be delivered to 'Folder1'. Period.
> (b) In the new system, some mail to 'bozo-f1(at)yahoo.com'
> is delivered to 'Folder1' (e.g., if the address
> appears on the TO or CC lines), and some mail winds up
> elsewhere, most probably 'Inbox' (e.g., if the sender
> put it in the BCC, or if the mail came from a group,
> or mailing list, or forwarder, or remailer, or spammer).
>
> Question: If you could choose, which would you prefer,
> (a) or (b)?
Obviously (a). Having said that:
1) It's obvious what Yahoo did here.
2) Yahoo's brain damage is rather obvious.
3) The only viable way to handle it is to vote with your wallet. Even before
I read how Yahoo replied to your inquiry, I knew perfectly well that
trying to knock some sense into those morons would be a waste of time.
> So I sent in a bug report to Yahoo Customer Care,
> and they refused to regard it as a bug (despite
Yah. I knew that even before I read this.
> the fact that the new functionality contradicts
> what they represent in the promotional literature).
>
> This situation begs several questions:
> - Why would Yahoo regard the new functionality as
> being better than the old?
Brain damage.
> - Could it be that this is a bug, and the Customer
> Care agent simply made a mistake in rejecting it?
Neither. It's incompetence on the part of both whoever designed and/or
implemented whatever they changed, and their customer support droids.
> - Or is this really the intended new functionality?
Who knows.
> - Considering that it worked fine before, why would
> they change something that was 100% accurate and
> reliable into something that works "more or less"?
Brain damage. See above.
> - Could it be that their Quality Assurance department
> is understaffed, resulting in the release of a
> huge new bug, and now they lack the resources to
> go back and fix it, so they don't want to admit
> that there's a problem? In other words, has
> Yahoo entered "The Dilbert Zone"?
No. It's likely simply incompetence and brain damage. See above.
> I really can't understand their thinking behind this,
There's nothing to understand. There's no thinking there to understand. It's
complete absence of thinking in play here.