Ever since the public learned that government officials could easily tap into email accounts, there has been a lot of concern. As a response to this kind of intrusiveness,

Google and Yahoo have banded together to promise the public that the two companies will be creating email programs that are secure, and entirely impossible for government peepers or hackers to tap into. Here’s the latest on the united Google and Yahoo front.

One Secure Email

Yahoo has already moved to make sending emails more secure for users. The company now makes it possible to type out secure emails through a small encryption box that Yahoo officials can’t read, and neither can government snoopers.

Gmail will also be working on an email system that’s safer than the one the company currently has. Even though Google was not available for comment this morning, the company did tell press that they would soon start using site encryption as one of the main criteria for rankings.

Google is now strongly suggesting that site developers work to make sites more secure over most other things, and that means using site encryption. Yahoo and Google will move forward with security plans next year, so that might mean that you’ll need to work on site security above all else sooner rather than later.

Big Tech Bands Together

Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google have all made internal traffic encryption a top priority once the companies learned that their sites could be hacked overseas post Snowden. Secure email systems from all of the companies are coming next, and that could restore trust in both Yahoo and Gmail email services. Of course, this all means those Google page rankings are going to change once again, so developers should start planning for these changes.

Security is a huge concern for nearly everyone these days. The fact that governments can tap into email systems is a big deal for most, though the vast majority of people aren’t of interest to governments. Those people that do have cause for concern (like journalists) will welcome any free email service that allows for encryption or other security methods. So, both Google and Yahoo are definitely onto something if either company wants to maintain user trust.

Under Scrutiny

The other point here is that both Google and Yahoo are under public scrutiny, since word that neither email system is particularly hard to hack into. Gaining user trust back won’t be easy for either one, though, so both are going to have work very hard to change their image into a positive one.

As far as Gmail goes, you can see whether or not anyone has been accessing your account from a different IP by going to your Google photo (top right hand corner), clicking on it, and choosing the “account” option. From there, select the “security” option, and then “view all events” under “recent activity.”

You can easily see a list of login place, and IP addresses. In the future, though, Google and Yahoo email services will be a lot more secure, and web developers should also take note of Google’s security priority.