Obvious Scammer in ‘First Item’ Advertising Space in Outlook’s GUI
I’m using the free/local version of Outlook with Yahoo Mail on a PC I noticed that my first inbox item (usually harmless advertising) was an obvious phishing scam today. (McAffee/Update your payment method blahblahblah…I don’t even have McAffee)
[I wanted to post a screenshot here, but the button is grayed out for some reason…?]
I mean, okay, Yahoo mail is apparently incapable of filtering out the text string “GLP-1” and I get more spam/scam emails than not, but all of that could be plausibly passed off as abject incompetence.
Spamming your customers with phishing scams labeled as advertising shows…malice.
How is this advertising sold? How could this even happen without some sort of vetting? Is it Yahoo I should be mad at here, or Microsoft?
Posted Apr 24, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC