Your Yahoo email is watching you

Do you still Yahooo! Well you may not want to because the multinational technology company has been scanning your emails since last year.

According to Thomson Reuters, an international multimedia news agency, Yahoo had secretly built a custom software program that search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials. Yahoo started scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the request of the National Security Agency or FBI, according to three former employees.

This is the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.

It is still unknown what information FBI officials were looking for, however, foxnews.com reports that FBI officials only wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters, like a phrase in an email or attachment.

Fox News was unable to determine what data Yahoo may have handed over, if any, and if FBI officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo. Yahoo was complying with a classified U.S. government demand.

"Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the company said in a brief statement in response to Fox News questions about the demand. Yahoo declined any further comment.

According to two of the former employees, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's decision to obey the directive was one of the reason why Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, departed from yahoo in June 2015. Yahoo is known for its Yahoo! Search and related services, like Yahoo! Directory, Mail, News, Answers and fantasy sports, it is yet to be seen if this news will effect Yahoo’s brand.