Internet rivals join forces to boost email security 

Both companies will collaborate on the development of new Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software that will prevent hackers, scammers and the government from reading privileged information contained within emails, according to a report from dumb-out.net.

Set to be released in 2015, the new software will hide message content from prying eyes, but email addresses and subject lines will still be readable.

Despite the good intentions of this project, there is some initial skepticism about it, as PGP software is often complicated to use. However, both Google and Yahoo stated that they will be working to ensure that the new feature is as user-friendly as possible.

The PGP software will be available at no additional cost to users, and can also be activated or deactivated at will. Both companies are confident in using PGP to boost privacy, as it is reportedly so secure, even the email providers themselves would be unable to decrypt the messages.

The partnership between the competing companies was born as a result of a series of meetings held with U.S. president Barack Obama about Internet privacy and security after Edward Snowden’s controversial NSA and Prism revelations.