A few days ago, 453,000 Yahoo accounts were compromised. Apparently, Yahoo stores user login and password in plain-text, without encryption! This reminded me that I had long ago created a Yahoo account myself. Since I haven't used that account in many years, I thought I should delete it.
I was actually surprised that I entered the correct login and password in the first attempt! After deleting all the junk mail, and obvious signs of it already being hacked, I tried to deactivate the account. Apparently, it's not so easy! First, I tried the 'Account Settings' option. It only has profile information, password security, subscriptions etc. There's no option of deleting your account.
Then I tried going into the inbox and going through the 'Mail Options'. As expected, there was only information for routing email, forwarding etc.
Finally, I did a Google search for deleting my Yahoo account. I came across this link. Lo and behold, after a couple of password checks, my account "has been deactivated and scheduled for deletion." Why could I not find this link in any of the settings is beyond me. Ironically, I had to use Google to delete my Yahoo account!
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