If you HAD an old Yahoo e-mail and "abandoned" it...

[ky331]

Yahoo now has a policy of "recycling" (reusing) old/"abandoned" e-mail accounts... accounts that have been inactive for at least a year... and offering these accounts to new people.   The problem is that some of these "abandoned" accounts are still receiving e-mail --- sometimes with Personally Identifiable Information --- from vendors thinking they're still in contact with the previous owner.   Not a good situation.

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/09/25/recycled-yahoo-email-addresses-still-receiving-messages-for-previous-owners-passwords-included/

[Corrine]

Obviously, Yahoo ignored the concerns of security vendors when they announced this change in June.

[Corrine]

Yahoo took action, but as far as I see it, it is too little, too late, especially since there are messages with "PII".
From Yahoo Responds To Recycled Email Security Problem - Security -:

Yahoo announced late Tuesday night that the company plans to roll out a tool for recipients of recycled email accounts to return messages that were not intended for them. InformationWeek reported Tuesday on three Yahoo users who began receiving emails containing personal information intended for the former user -- including bank and wireless account information -- after signing up for a recycled Yahoo account.

The new button, called "Not My Email," will roll out this week and will be found under the "Actions" tab in users' inboxes. The button will help users of recycled accounts train their inboxes to recognize which email is intended for them and which is not, eventually rejecting email before the user has read it.