Yahoo has been receiving flak after news surfaced that the accounts of 500 million Yahoo Mail users have been compromised. With no surprise, most people using the service have decided to call it quits.

However, many users are finding it hard to leave Yahoo. According to statements given to The Associated Press, automatic email forwarding has been disabled by Yahoo, thus users are unable to migrate their emails to other accounts.

Besides the data breach scandal, Yahoo has been accused of giving US government agencies access to the emails of its users for surveillance purposes.

Yahoo issued a statement saying that the company is working on getting automatic forwarding "back up and running as soon as possible." 

The negative headlines are expected to affect the Yahoo brand negatively. The data breach of 500 million Yahoo Mail users has been described as one of the biggest hacks of recent times. Yahoo's decision to disable email auto-forwarding is likely a last ditch attempt at keeping its users from leaving.

Verizon is in negotiations to buy Yahoo. The telecom company has asked for a $1 billion discount off Yahoo's asking price following the recent damaging revelations. Yahoo's initial sales price was set at $4.83 billion.