U.K. Internet service provider BT has dropped Yahoo as its email provider of choice, but the companies denied that the switch had anything to do with security vulnerabilities within Yahoo Mail.
In a statement, BT said it is switching its customers' email accounts to a new BT Mail service next month as part of a relaunch of BT.com. According to The Telegraph, the move came after BT customers started reporting repeated instances of their Yahoo email accounts being compromised by hackers. In March, the paper said BT was investigating the spike in Yahoo email spam.
A Yahoo spokeswoman, however, said the paper's report is inaccurate.
"BT is relaunching BT.com and a new email service, BT Mail, which is more closely integrated into BT.com and uses a single identity – the BT ID – for customers to access their email and other BT services online," the Yahoo spokeswoman said. "BT will be contacting all of its BT Yahoo customers in the coming months to tell them what to expect before their email is switched to the new service."
The switch means BT customers will see a new, BT-designed website via BT.com rather than one that mimics the Yahoo experience. Instead, content will now be pulled from the Press Associations, which BT said is "one of the oldest and most-established content organizations," and will provide breaking news, features, opinion, photos, and videos.
"BT decided to launch new BT Mail as part of the new BT.com offering following a detailed internal strategic review," a BT spokesperson said.
"We're always looking for ways to improve and develop our products and services," she continued. "We want to give customers a website where everything is in one place. BT Mail will be more closely integrated with BT.com and customers will only need a single identity - the BT ID - to sign in to email and to other services on BT.com."
In December, Yahoo introduced a brand new version of its popular email service, which it said was speedier, "more intuitive, and easier to navigate." For more, see PCMag's review of Yahoo Mail for iPhone.