Yahoo Mail to block fake eBay and PayPal e-mail

If you use Yahoo Mail you should be seeing a significant reduction in the number of e-mail scams purporting to be from eBay and PayPal very soon.

Yahoo will be upgrading its system beginning on Thursday with technology--dubbed "DomainKeys"--designed to block phishing spam and other fraudulent e-mails that look like they come from eBay and PayPal but don't. The system works by verifying the domain of the sender of the e-mail, allowing ISPs to block messages they deem illegitimate.

The upgrade is expected to be accomplished globally over the next several weeks.

Typically, the phishing scams masquerade as e-mails from trusted financial sources and direct a recipient to a Web site where they're asked to enter their user name and password. From there, their information is stolen.

Although most companies warn their customers that they won't send unsolicited e-mails asking for usernames and passwords, many people are still fooled. Blocking the scam e-mails before they hit in-boxes should cut down on the problem. Now, when is Yahoo going to do this for the major banks?