Yahoo now Requires a Mandatory Mobile Number?
 

... to open an email account?

Surely it's not for data mining purposes or to call and sell us something.

Maybe its similar to Google. When I login to my google account from different computers they will send a text messages to me with a security code to verify my identity. Its a pretty good feature and fortunately they send no ads to my cellphone.

On Google it's currently optional. Which is nice because people like me.. do not OWN a cell phone! They have no provision for me. Once every few months when I go to youtube or something it'll ask me to provide one but there's a "skip" link. I've sent them feedback about it which.. was worth a few moments of typing and not much else I'm sure.

I tried logging into my yahoo account which has been de-activated due to not being used in a long time. When trying to sign up for it again I put my home phone number and it seemed to take it but just showed me the sign up screen again with no error message. So I went to their support and filled in everything I could and put "I do not own a cell phone" in the complaint. We'll see what they tell me, if anything.

I refuse to add cellphone, simply because my cellphone number has changed too many times.
Sometimes it changes without much warning; like when I dropped the phone in the toilet and had to get another phone right away from another company.

update: like a typical customer support person, "Johnny" replied to my complaint and sent me a cut and paste about why accounts are de-activated and did not reply to my complaint which I made clear in the first email.

I refrained from wondering out loud how he earns his paycheck when he doesn't reply to the only item contained in a support ticket and specifically asked if Yahoo provides any way whatsoever for a person without a mobile number to join.

Fun times. We'll see what Johnny has to say eventually.

And people wonder why they have been laid off.

And people wonder why yahoo is number 2 still to google. Get your act together man!

Fuck them !!
This is just more of their surveillance find out who you are bullshit.

"Rachael" replied with cut and pastes from their terms and FAQ pages about why they require a mobile phone number, yet could evidently not be bothered to say "Tom, Yes we require it and No there is no way to sign up with out it" so I've replied to her and provided my home telephone number for her in case she wants to call me and say Yes or No. I also asked her to just say Yes they require it, or No they don't require it and provide me the alternate join method.

Not everyone has a fucking cell phone but evidently enough do that they don't give a shit about the rest of us having accounts with them.

By the way, I don't really need an account there, but now it's pissing me off :)

I can see why they are doing it sadly..probably tired of 80%+ of all their email addresses being shitty chat spam accounts from the Philippines, getting flack from other major mail providers, etc

Not that I like this move... starts to mess with my testing

Yahoo is a joke. I needed a email to sign up to a yahoo group. Well their security wont let you have a user id if any of the letters in that id match any letter in your name.

Its beyond retarded.