Over the years, it is easy to go through a number of email addresses, whether you change jobs, marry, divorce, or just get tired of your service provider. As people claim more and more of these email addresses, and as more and more people get on the internet, email services start to run out of desired usernames. Instead of a simple, easy-to-remember email address, new users are, inevitably, forced to resort to using a bizarre combination of characters and numbers that they themselves, let alone the people they give their address out to, have trouble remembering.

When ex-Yahoo users cease to use their account, their email address is recycled; a year later, someone else can claim that same email address. Unfortunately, since we don’t always stay in constant contact with the people we know, sometimes, the only method that they have for contacting us is that old email address, and, without realizing it, they can easily send information that you wouldn’t want someone else seeing to that address’s new owner.

Yahoo assures users that the process is being conducted safely, deleting any private data from the previous user, unsubscribing the account from any newsletters or other promotional mail, and sending bouncebacks to senders for at least 30-60 days. IT security professionals are arguing that the process is not safe enough.

One man told Information Week that he knew a powerful amount of information about his email account’s previous owner; “I can gain access to their Pandora (News - Alert) account but I won't. I can gain access to their Facebook account, but I won't. I know their name, address and phone number. I know where their child goes to school. I know the last four digits of their social security number. I know they had an eye doctor's appointment last week and I was just invited to their friend's wedding."

Mike Rispoli, a spokesman for Privacy International, told BBC technology reporter Jane Wakefield that while Yahoo tried to downplay the risks involved in recycling email addresses, it is evident that they are all-too-real, “resulting in some of our most intimate data being accessed by someone we don’t know and without our knowledge… We’re talking about account passwords, contacts for friends and families, medical records.” 

Users are advised to log into their account every six months to ensure that they maintain control of the account.