Yahoo FAIL

My more-or-less defunct Yahoo email account is being used to send out spam messages to people in my address book.

My more-or-less defunct Yahoo email account is being used to send out spam messages to people in my address book.

Alas, I’m unable to login to it at all in Chrome or Firefox–it sends me on an endless loop on the login screen, even though it recognizes my account. For whatever reason, I can get in via IE, whereby I can access everything in the account except the account settings, where I presume is where I’d go to change my password. Attempting to do this sends me into the aforementioned endless loop.

This is annoying.

FILED UNDER: Science & Technology,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Chad S says:

    I believe Yahoo is undergoing an upgrade to their mail system.

  2. Oh is that what they call it, an “upgrade” ?

  3. Chad S says:
  4. Boyd says:

    Yahoo has experienced this “endless loop” problem as far back as I can remember. Someone made a horrendous design decision way back at the beginning of Yahoo, and it’s turned out to be a cancer that has wound its way throughout the entire Yahoo body, the cure of which would kill the patient.

  5. John Burgess says:

    I’ve been using Yahoo.com for what? the last 10 years? I’ve had no issues with it, though the spam filter occasionally catches my own, legitimate e-mail. As I check my spam filter a couple of times a day, that’s just a minor annoyance.

  6. James Joyner says:

    John: I dunno. I’ve had the account probably going on 15 years now and have only had occasional problems. It’s long since become a tertiary account, as I find Gmail easier to use for my purposes and filter my work email through it, but it’s still linked to various Yahoo services that I use.

  7. michael reynolds says:

    So you aren’t the son of a deposed Nigerian general who needs a little funding in order to transfer 100 million dollars to my account?

  8. John Burgess says:

    @Michael: In a word, ‘no.’ I’m such a tightwad that I’d find a way to access that $100M without cutting in anyone else.

  9. Trumwill says:

    I was about to talk about how terrible Yahoo Mail is in general. They charge for things that GMail provides for free. Even when you pay them, they still send you advertising. Their IMAP servers have also long been screwy even when you’re a paying customer. I really dislike Yahoo Mail.

    But it’s GMail and not Yahoo that has been crashing my smartphone over the last week.