Yahoo security chief Alex Stamos announced on Thursday that by sometime next year, Yahoo Mail will be encrypted end-to-end, and will be compatible with end-to-end encryption in Gmail.

CNET shares this statement from Stamos:

“What this means is that eventually not only will Yahoo Mail users be able to communicate in an encrypted manner with other Yahoo Mail users, but also with Gmail users and eventually with other email systems that adopt similar methodologies.”

Yahoo is following Google’s lead on this one.

Google announced the alpha version of a browser tool called End-to-End in June, which lets users add more security to what Google was already offering. In a blog post, the company explained:

“End-to-end” encryption means data leaving your browser will be encrypted until the message’s intended recipient decrypts it, and that similarly encrypted messages sent to you will remain that way until you decrypt them in your browser.

While end-to-end encryption tools like PGP and GnuPG have been around for a long time, they require a great deal of technical know-how and manual effort to use. To help make this kind of encryption a bit easier, we’re releasing code for a new Chrome extension that uses OpenPGP, an open standard supported by many existing encryption tools.

Ultimately, the idea is that users won’t have to worry about anyone gaining access to their emails, including companies like Google and Yahoo themselves, and governments.

Yahoo will also be open sourcing code in the fall.

Image via Yahoo