• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 11, 2015

Only Hotmail, Outlook and AOL accounts were supported when Yahoo announced two months ago that it would add third-party email support to its newly launched Mail app. Now Yahoo has made its biggest rival -- as revealed at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit -- accessible, too, supported by a powerful search feature.

Yahoo now allows app users to add a mailbox such as Google Gmail. The app accesses and searches across the entire Gmail archive, including attachments, not just the most recent emails, which is how it’s done in many apps today. Powerful search, smart contacts, rich compose features and Yahoo Account Key for password-free sign-in are now available with Gmail.

Offering support for multiple email accounts across rivals, the Yahoo Mail app also features password-free Yahoo Account Key sign-in method. Gmail support in Yahoo Mail is available today in both iOS and Android apps plus, of course, the Yahoo Mail website itself.

The biggest remaining unanswered question concerns whether the Yahoo Mail app can pick up on keywords, trends and other insights from integrated email platforms, giving Yahoo access to a variety of insights and target advertising options.

Not to be outdone, Google added a loss prevention administrative tool for Gmail in the Google for Work program to help businesses keep data secure. It monitors emails to ensure that confidential or sensitive information is only shared with people approved to receive the data.

"Gmail DLP will automatically check all outgoing emails from the sales department and take action based on what the admin has specified: either quarantine the email for review, tell users to modify the information, or block the email from being sent and notify the sender," Suzanne Frey, director of security, trust and privacy for the Google Apps team, explains in a blog post. "These checks don't just apply to email text, but also to content inside common attachment types-such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. And admins can also create custom rules with keywords and regular expressions."

A Google white paper explains more.