# Skip forever, Yahoo, I'm not giving you my fucking phone number! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 4, 2014, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405 "2014-10-04T21:14:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/21 "2014-10-06T10:07:21Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > And so far I haven’t found anything that requires we be able to receive a text, since not everyone has that ability yet. They usually offer a choice between a text or an automated call. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/22 "2014-10-06T11:49:11Z")
I’m extremely protective about my cell number. I have caller ID blocked and only give my number to good friends. When my phone rings, I know it will be someone I know. All that aside, I’ve given Google my number. They’re cool. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/23 "2014-10-06T12:38:24Z")
I was glad that Google finally wised up and stopped asking. If someone says no every single time you ask, they probably aren’t willing to give it to you. Yahoo hasn’t stopped asking, and now requires it to set up an account. I actually had a huge rant against Gmail for a while for dropping SMS support, and almost signed up for Yahoo until I realized I had to give them a phone number to even set up an account. The landline idea is nice–but there’s not one landline per person, and most of the things I’ve seen want to text you for confirmation. YouTube was actually the first place I’d seen that offers a voice option. I’m sure that’s because they own Google Voice and thus can easily not accept those throwaway numbers. They aren’t looking out for my best interests. The only excuse they can come up with for requiring my number is that they can help me if I lose my password or have unauthorized access. But I’ve already given them an alternative email for that purpose. The anti-spam idea is pretty much all that makes sense. Hence why YouTube requires a number to go over 15 minutes. But that only works if they are limiting you to one account per number. And that’s not how I use email. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/24 "2014-10-06T14:36:06Z")
Google hasn’t stopped asking me, and I’ve said “no” consistently. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/25 "2014-10-06T23:36:48Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Fuck you, you idiots. > > I have four Yahoo mail accounts (one of which is for the SDMB). About every three or four weeks I make the rounds to see what’s showed up. For more or less the last two years Yahoo has offered the opportunity to recover access to my account via text message to my phone. “We’ll only use this number for important messages.” Yeah, right. > > For each account, every three weeks. > > That doesn’t irritate me so much as this: this is what irritates me: this is what pisses me off: this is what grates on my last nerve: “Skip for now”. > > Fuck you, Yahoo. I NEVER want this option. I am not going to give you my phone now; I will never give you my phone number ever; my heirs will not give you what my phone number used to be. Where is the “skip forever, fuck off and die in a fire, if you ever offer me this again your cats will be killed by snipers” option? > > I’m just asking. Guess you get what you pay for there guy.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/26 "2014-10-06T23:43:12Z")
What if Yahoo is having a party and they realize at the last minute that they forgot to ask you, so they go to call you with directions and a request to pick up a couple bags of ice on your way? What then? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/27 "2014-10-07T01:04:48Z")
I’m worried yahoo will order 20 pizzas and send them to my house. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/28 "2014-10-07T15:18:43Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Yahoo can be hacked, which would put the phone number in the hands of all manner of spammers and scammers. That’s not what the OP is complaining about though, he seems to think Yahoo will use the phone number for some nefarious marketing purpose. Anyway, if you’re afraid that Yahoo might get hacked, then certainly don’t maintain 4 email accounts with them. Between those 4 accounts I’m guessing there’s a lot more personal info than a phone number. > [@BigT](#): > > They aren’t looking out for my best interests. The only excuse they can come up with for requiring my number is that they can help me if I lose my password or have unauthorized access. But I’ve already given them an alternative email for that purpose. Security folks will tell you that out-of-band password recovery is much more secure than using an alternate email address. If your computer/network is compromised, sending password/reset info to another email address can very well make the problem worse. On the other hand, it’s much less likely that your phone AND your computer/network have been compromised. > [@BigT](#): > > If someone says no every single time you ask, they probably aren’t willing to give it to you. I can agree with this. They probably shouldn’t _require_ it, but I guess they think that’s the best way to avoid future security and PR headaches. > [@Frank](#): > > Frankly, I’m getting tired of Yahoo. They’ve been my home page for more than a decade, primarily for news aggregation. Now their news is half ads, and half of the rest is International Business Times and Huffington Post type bullshit. > > I’m about ready to dump them as a home page and as a news aggregator and as an email provider. They’ve really arrive at the point where all they want to give me is shit, and I’m not interested in eating it. Well, pit them for that then. Apparently at one time you liked their service enough that you created 4 accounts with them. But now they’re struggling and doing what they think they need to survive, and it’s certainly your right to think they suck because of that. But pitting them for the phone number thing is silly. I’ll eat my hat if it turns out they do use it for some marketing purpose. If it bothers you that much, use a google voice number. This is exactly the sort of thing that was designed for. Of course, one day if/when google decides to start charging for this service, I guess we’ll see another round of pittings. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/29 "2014-10-07T19:55:44Z")
Also, the other thing about alternate email recovery is that a lot of people think they’re being extremely clever by having Email B be the recovery from Email A and Email A be the recovery of Email B. Now, some hacker breaks into Email B and sees that the recovery address is Email A. They send a “forgot my password” request to Email A which dutifully sends the recovery info to Email B and now the hacker has two email accounts that you will never ever be able to recover ever again. Seriously, don’t do this! ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/30 "2014-10-07T21:23:49Z")
> [@arseNal](#): > > That’s not what the OP is complaining about though, he seems to think Yahoo will use the phone number for some nefarious marketing purpose. That is what I think. When I last had a land-line, I would get about five or six phone calls every day. About one out of every 30 of those calls was a call from someone I actually was willing to talk to. That’s with my number registered with both state and national no-call lists. I’ve no interest in that happening to my cell. I don’t see any reason to trust that Yahoo won’t sell or share my number, at some point. When they get broke enough, or when they get sleazy enough, or when they think it’s best business practice. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/31 "2014-10-07T21:44:11Z")
This is what happens when you put a skirt in charge of things. Now all she does all day is drink wine coolers and troll Yahoo accounts for guys’ numbers. Pathetic really. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/32 "2014-10-07T22:02:04Z")
just stopping by to point out that I just paid up for another year at SDMB, and they required a phone number. I tried skipping it, but I couldn’t go forward. I ended up just making one up. I can’t imagine anything important enough that I just have to get a phone call from Cecil. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/33 "2014-10-07T22:18:15Z")
> [@arseNal](#): > > Security folks will tell you that out-of-band password recovery is much more secure than using an alternate email address. If your computer/network is compromised, sending password/reset info to another email address can very well make the problem worse. On the other hand, it’s much less likely that your phone AND your computer/network have been compromised. This. There are three main reasons email providers want your number: 1. Recovery, in the event that your account is compromised. 2. Limiting bogus accounts. A phone number gives them higher confidence yours is a real account, and not stockpiled by spammers. 3. Two factor auth. If someone tries to log in from a suspicious location, they can text you a confirmation code. Those are all good things that benefit the owner of the account. And they can’t reliably be achieved with a secondary email address (if you’ve lost one password, chances are even higher that you’ve lost the password to your secondary account too). ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/34 "2014-10-07T22:55:06Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > They will send you activation code to your phone so putting in a fake phone number will not work. And if I don’t own a cell phone? Then what? I can’t use Yahoo mail? ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/35 "2014-10-07T23:02:46Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That is what I think. When I last had a land-line, I would get about five or six phone calls every day. About one out of every 30 of those calls was a call from someone I actually was willing to talk to. That’s with my number registered with both state and national no-call lists. I’ve no interest in that happening to my cell. > > I don’t see any reason to trust that Yahoo won’t sell or share my number, at some point. When they get broke enough, or when they get sleazy enough, or when they think it’s best business practice. Most landlines were probably publicly listed at one point, so if that’s the case it was freely available for telemarketers to have put into their databases ages ago and have sold and re-sold to other telemarketers over the years. And we all know the do-not-call registries are often ignored by the telemarketers. Call me naive, but I really do doubt that Yahoo would blatantly renege on what they explicitly say they won’t do with the mobile number. And in any case, like I said, you can always use a google voice number, which is ideal for precisely this purpose. Then you can finally just give Yahoo a number once and for all and their kitties don’t have to die a horrible death from afar. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/36 "2014-10-08T00:53:46Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > just stopping by to point out that I just paid up for another year at SDMB, and they required a phone number. I tried skipping it, but I couldn’t go forward. I ended up just making one up. I can’t imagine anything important enough that I just have to get a phone call from Cecil. Was it the SDMB, or the payment processor, PayPal? I just re-upped last week and as far as I can remember, the SDMB itself doesn’t ask for anything - you just go through to PayPal and pay and come back to the SDMB. PayPal needs your phone number like any credit card processor does. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/37 "2014-10-08T02:12:44Z")
Many of us have different free e-mail accounts for different classes of correspondents. Where I live, SIM cards are available for 50 cents or so – why not have throwaway SIMs to go with the throwaway e-mail accounts? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/38 "2014-10-08T03:20:46Z")
> [@arseNal](#): > > Security folks will tell you that out-of-band password recovery is much more secure than using an alternate email address. If your computer/network is compromised, sending password/reset info to another email address can very well make the problem worse. On the other hand, it’s much less likely that your phone AND your computer/network have been compromised That may make sense in theory, but not in practice. First off, it assumes that I save the password to my security email account in the clear somewhere on my computer. And that they have gotten through any security I have set up on said computer. Second, and more importantly, I’m going to be logged in to my main email address on my phone. It’s kinda a necessity with the way smartphones work these days. And between my laptop and my phone, which am I most likely to lose? Not that they could tell that there was any fraudulent activity if I get compromised on my own equipment. The way such activity is detected is that it comes from an unusual location. And this makes sense–that is the much, much more likely way my account would be compromised. Getting physical access is a lot more work. The only way to protect your equipment from being compromised is to directly protect your equipment from being compromised, both physically and with encryption. None of this other stuff actually helps in that situation. And outside that situation, an alternate email works just as well. (Yes, even for two factor authentication. You might say that using a phone would be more convenient, but that depends on the circumstance. Which is probably why it’s always optional.) ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/39 "2014-10-08T03:29:43Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Was it the SDMB, or the payment processor, PayPal? I just re-upped last week and as far as I can remember, the SDMB itself doesn’t ask for anything - you just go through to PayPal and pay and come back to the SDMB. > > PayPal needs your phone number like any credit card processor does. I don’t have a paypal account, but it probably was on the payment page. Anyway, I made up a number and it worked ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405/40 "2014-10-08T03:42:24Z")
Regardless of your relationship with PayPal, they are still the payment processor for the SDMB. They require a phone number like any other payment processor. You did not give your phone number to “Cecil.” Interesting that you were cool with providing a way to charge you money, but you were scared that they might have the ability to call you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skip-forever-yahoo-im-not-giving-you-my-fucking-phone-number/700405.md?page=3)