Yahoo Mail has made some changes to its terms and conditions that would allow it to scan user emails for targeted advertising.

The policy has already been adopted by Google’s Gmail service. Yahoo said that it was moving its users to a new email system which will scan inbound and outbound emails for spam and targeted advertising.

Yahoo clarified that users will also move to the new system, which requires Yahoo to scan their emails, only if they give them their consent.

“We think transparency is key because our business depends almost entirely on the trust of our users,” a Yahoo spokesperson told PC Advisor.

“We therefore ask users (via a pop-up notice) for consent to the extension of machine-scanning inbound and outbound emails to look for keywords and links to further protect you from spam, surface photos and in time, serve users with interest-based advertising,” he added.

The ICO said that it had no problem with Yahoo scanning the emails as long as users knew about it but consumer group Which? along with some privacy groups asked Yahoo to reverse its decision to scan user emails for advertisements.