Can anyone explain the current status of “verizon.net” email? (1 Viewer)

[Sean Bryan]

I’m hoping someone can help me help my Mom.

My parents used Verizon internet years ago and have a Verizon.net email address. They’ve switched to Xfinity for internet several years ago, but my mother kept the Verizon internet active because she is concerned about losing the email address. She says there are many potentially important entities that have that as her email contact. IDK, SMH.

I’m telling her it’s crazy to keep a second internet provider that she doesn’t use just for an email address, but you know how Moms in their 70’s can be.

Of course I’ve told her to just take her time to figure out anything/anyone that uses that as her email and then just change each one to a new address over time. But, again, Mom logic persists.

However, I believe something changed with verizon.net around 2017/2018 and those email address now go through either AOL or Yahoo! I checked and my mother said that she logs into Yahoo! to access the verizon.net email. I think I actually remember helping with a “migration” years ago, but I’m really not certain. But she’s definitely accessing through Yahoo! now. So that being the case, if she cancels her unneeded verizon internet account, will she still have access to that Verizon.net email through the Yahoo! login? My gut says yes she will, but I don’t want to just tell her “go ahead, cancel Verizon, it’ll be fine” without being certain.

Anyone know the deal with how this works?

 

[John Dirk]

If I'm understanding you correctly then the answer is "no," she will not. Yahoo, like most other Internet-based email providers, operates what is known in the business as a mail server. Since this particular mail server belongs to Yahoo, it's customers will usually have email addresses using the suffix, "yahoo.com." Users access their mail using a front end mail client such as Yahoo mail.

Here's where it gets a little tricky and what I believe has happened in your mothers case. Many people have multiple email addresses from different providers [Yahoo, Google, MSN, Hotmail, etc.] but don't want to go through the trouble of visiting each site [mail client] separately to access their mail. To facilitate this and endear you to their specific site, most of these companies allow you to configure their client to access accounts from other providers. For instance, I have email addresses with both Google and Yahoo but, for simplicity, I access both using Microsoft's mail client.

This is done through standard Internet mail protocols shared by most providers. The most common are POP [Post Office Protocol] and IMAP [Internet Message Access Protocol]. Using either of these, you can configure a single mail client to access mail from multiple mail servers. Put simply, it sounds like somewhere along the line your mom was setup to access her Verizon email using yahoo's mail client. As long as the Verizon account remains active this should work fine but, if you cancel it, she'll likely lose access to her email.

There are two steps you can take on her behalf.

• For entities that allow it, contact them and provide them with the address you want her to continue using.
• To cover any stragglers, include a forwarding address in all replies to [worthwhile] emails received from the Verizon account for a period of time.

Once you feel comfortable, close the Verizon account.

Hope this makes sense but let me know if it doesn't.

 

[Rodney]

John is pretty close to accurate with his post. The only thing that he is missing is that Verizon got out of the email server business so accounts must use either AOL or Yahoo’s email server to access the Verizon.net email account.

Verizon Email Retirement | Customer Service & Support

Verizon has retired our email service. We have completed our notifications regarding this change, and customers no longer have the option to keep their Verizon.net email address or extract and move their data to another service provider.

www.verizon.com

But everything else is accurate and you should really have her move to another address and sunset the Verizon one.

 

[John Dirk]

Thanks @Rodney - This clarifies things even more and explains how the account ended up on Yahoo's mail servers. While I'd still recommend sunsetting the Verizon email account in favor of [perhaps] a native Yahoo account, it appears the Verizon Internet service can be cancelled immediately with no loss of data.

 

[Sean Bryan]

John is pretty close to accurate with his post. The only thing that he is missing is that Verizon got out of the email server business so accounts must use either AOL or Yahoo’s email server to access the Verizon.net email account.

Verizon Email Retirement | Customer Service & Support

Verizon has retired our email service. We have completed our notifications regarding this change, and customers no longer have the option to keep their Verizon.net email address or extract and move their data to another service provider.

www.verizon.com

But everything else is accurate and you should really have her move to another address and sunset the Verizon one.

Thanks @Rodney - This clarifies things even more and explains how the account ended up on Yahoo's mail servers. While I'd still recommend sunsetting the Verizon email account in favor of [perhaps] a native Yahoo account, it appears the Verizon Internet service can be cancelled immediately with no loss of data.

So am I understanding correctly that since Verizon is no longer in the email business and the address is using Yahoo’s mail servers that she can cancel her Verizon internet and this email account will continue to function?

She does already have a Gmail account (and could set up an iCloud address) so I’d still like her to stop using this address. But I’m most interested in ending the unnecessary spending on the unused internet as soon as possible.

 

[Rodney]

I'm a cautious guy, so I won't say definitively that you are okay to deactivate the Verizon account. I don't know if Verizon will send information to Yahoo that your mother's account has been deactivated and to shut down the email address, or if Verizon just moved the email domain to Yahoo so Yahoo will allow it to continue to be used and only deactivate it after a time of non-use (no login to check email within a certain frame of time).

 

[John Dirk]

I'm not that cautious as this would be the most expensive email service in history. "Never say never" but I would have it canceled immediately.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

verizon.net email addys go through AOL. You can set them to forward to your current email address quite easily.