Yahoo blames Microsoft’s IMAP implementation for Windows Phone 7 data leak

By Tom Warren, on 2nd Feb 11 10:39 am with 6 Comments

Yahoo has blasted Microsoft over its IMAP implementation in Windows Phone 7.

The mail giant issued an apology on Tuesday for an issue with Windows Phone 7 and Yahoo Mail. However, one Yahoo spokesperson was quick to point out Microsoft was at fault in an statement to The Register. A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed that the data glitch is “specific to how Microsoft chose to implement IMAP for Yahoo! Mail and does not impact Yahoo! Mail on… other mobile devices.”

The Windows Phone 7 data leak issue came to light in January when Windows blogger Paul Thurrott uncovered several cases of high data usage. Microsoft investigated the issue and confirmed the fault was due to a “third-party solution”. The company refused to name the solution but thanks to some investigative work from Rafael Rivera, it was forced to admit that Yahoo mail is at fault.

Yahoo also confirmed that it has supplied a temporary and permanent fix to Microsoft:

“Yahoo! has offered to provide Microsoft a near-term solution for the implementation they chose, and is encouraging Microsoft to change to a standard way of integrating with Yahoo! Mail, which would result in a permanent fix.”

Microsoft is on the verge of delivering its first Windows Phone 7 update. Rumors suggest the update will go live on February 7. Microsoft is promising performance enhancements for its first Windows Phone 7 update. The update, codenamed “NoDo”, will improve application start-up and resume times and introduce the important copy and paste feature. The software giant is also expected to detail further updates at Mobile World Congress and MIX11. Joe Belfiore, who oversees Windows Phone Program Management, and is responsible for the design and software product definition of forthcoming generations of Windows phones will keynote MIX11 this year. Belfiore is expected to layout a roadmap for the future of Windows Phone 7 and detail Microsoft’s second Windows Phone 7 update. Microsoft is also working on a major overhaul of the Windows Phone 7 browser. In a job posting, listed in November, the software maker promises a “major overhaul of standard support and new approaches to make significant advances in performance, power consumption and bandwidth utilization.” Microsoft may be ready to detail its future Internet Explorer mobile plans at MIX in April too. Microsoft is believed to be planning Flash and HTML5 support for Windows Phone 7.

  • GP007

    If it’s MS’s IMAP setup then why oh why does it work fine with Gmail? Unless it doesn’t and we don’t know about it. This passing of blame back and forth gets silly in the end, just fix the problem and shuttup about it.

    • http://twitter.com/runbmp Patrick Olson

      yeah the pointing of fingers never gets anything done in the end. Fingers must remain on the keyboard for a solution.

  • http://madebyplast.com Chun Yin

    “A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed that the data glitch is “specific to how Microsoft chose to implement IMAP for Yahoo! Mail and does not impact Yahoo! Mail on… other mobile devices.””

    I’ve seen quite a few people complain about Yahoo apps draining battery etc. on other platforms like Android, so clearly something’s going wrong on Yahoo’s part.

  • Dylan Lewis

    I don’t know why business partners wouldn’t be working together to just fix this problem. Why are they so fast to play the blame game?

  • Murkland

    You seriously need to stop respamming older posts at the end of every new.

    • Guest

      Agreed. At first I didn’t mind it, but seeing it on pretty much every news story is superfluous. It’s like an unnecessary padding to lengthen the article. If it’s a short story, then make it a short story. I strongly dislike being given the same “background” information on every article. For a broader news story that might attract less knowledgeable people then it might be useful. However for a story such as this, it’s only us techy types that are going to read it and be interested. We don’t need or want all that extra padding.