Set and Forget

Ladies & Gentlemen: I time-traveled today.

I’m happy to report that 2001 is alive and well, and working quietly on my behalf. And probably yours too.

So. I got an email at stupid-o-clock in the morning from Yahoo today letting me know “someone from California” had attempted an unauthorized access to my Yahoo email account.

“Oh yeah… I do have an old Yahoo email account.” I recollected, fumbling for my first cup of coffee. Good old diggity007@yahoo.com. A relic of the late 90’s when the mashup of a college nickname and James Bond’s agent number seemed like a perfectly respectable cyber sobriquet.

I looked into things a bit more over breakfast, and it turned out that “someone from California” was, in fact, Google.

Like many self-respecting nerds and wizards, I’d trained the Big G to automatically fetch my old Yahoo emails into my primary Gmail account around, oh, 2006.

A bit more morning research showed me that Yahoo (now Verizon) is now shutting down all sorts of old doors into and out of their dusty old foyer. Partly on account of their epic 2013 security meltdown, and mostly on account of Verizon’s understandable desire to make some dough.
Net/Net: Adios Gmail connection — You’ve been “unauthorized”.

Given that I have no interest in being part of Yahoo’s decade-late-to-the-party monetization strategy, I began the process of figuring out how to nope-out of Yahoo mail entirely. Besides, there’s nothing in…