Yahoo, Gmail make telephone number mandatory for creating email accounts

Yahoo and Gmail, the top free email providers, have made it mandatory for users to create new email addresses, in a bid to check spam, PTI reports. Users who want to create a new email id now need to provide a telephone number which the providers can verify.

According to the web site, the move to seek phone number was aimed at checking spam.
 
"In an effort to protect our users from abuse, we sometimes ask users to prove they're not a robot before they're able to create or sign in to accounts. Having this additional confirmation via phone is an effective way to keep spammers from abusing our systems," the web site said.
 
The internet search company had also capped the number of accounts that could be created with one telephone number, but the website did not specify the maximum number of email account it would allow.