Mr Lee Posted January 9, 2009 Posted January 9, 2009 This is a post taken from the Yahoo groups, Yahoo is Tracking Group Members Sat Jan 3, 2009 6:32 am (PST) Yahoo is Tracking Group Members. Cut&paste from expat wise investors.If you belong to ANY Yahoo Groups - be aware that Yahoo is nowusing "Web Beacons" to track every Yahoo Group user. It's similar tocookies, but allows Yahoo to record every website and every group youvisit, even when you're not connected to Yahoo.Look at their updated privacy statement at www.yahoo.com (at bottomof page) About half-way down the privacy page, in the section on*cookies*, you will see a link that says *WEB BEACONS*. Click on thephrase "Web Beacons." On the page that opens, on the left find a boxentitled "Opt-Out." In that section find "opt-out of interest-matched advertising" link that will let you "opt-out" of theirsnooping. Click it and then click the opt-out button on the nextpage.Note that Yahoo's invasion of your privacy - and your ability to opt-out of it - is not user-specific. It is MACHINE specific. That meansyou will have to opt-out on every computer (and browser) you use.Please forward this to your other groups. You might complain, too,but I'm not sure if anyone is listening. I remember when they signedall users up to get spam and we had to opt out of that a few yearsago.------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -----http://info. yahoo.com/ privacy/us/ yahoo/opt_ out/targeting/details.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mik Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I thought maybe this was an urban legend, but it's true. I went to Yahoo and opted out. You can opt out of more ads here: http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp"Yahoo! is a participating member of the Network Advertising Initiative. You can exercise the same Yahoo! opt-out on the NAI site and also manage your other ad network opt-outs." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnrxx99 Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 I never use Yahoo. After I first joined a group about 2 years ago I started to receive spam. The usual stuff, penis extensions, sex with animals, how to murder your wife - nice family topics.They all used different names so filtering was not easy and I eventually changed my email address, which I had put off in the hope they would go away. Since then no spam.So in my view, never, ever use yahoo anything - they are scum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMason Posted January 10, 2009 Posted January 10, 2009 (edited) I thought maybe this was an urban legend, but it's true. I went to Yahoo and opted out. You can opt out of more ads here: http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp"Yahoo! is a participating member of the Network Advertising Initiative. You can exercise the same Yahoo! opt-out on the NAI site and also manage your other ad network opt-outs."Just to clarify, you are not opting out of ads. You will still see the same amount of ads that you currently see. What you are opting out of is the tracking mechanisms that help marketers personalize their ads and present you with advertising you are more likely to be interested in based on the sites you visit and search terms you enter in a search engine. Personally, I don't have a problem with these tracking mechanisms. If I'm going to see ads, I might as well see ones that are more likely to be relevant to what I'm interested in. In my situation, I've noticed that I see far more travel and shipping company ads than I have in the past. I'm sure that's due to my increased visits to Philippines and travel related sites.My only problem with the Yahoo methodology is that it's done on a per browser/machine basis, not per user name. If you use 3 different browsers, you need to opt out with all 3 of them. If you browse from different machines, you need to opt out on all systems. I'd prefer if Yahoo let you opt out based on your Yahoo ID, but they don't. Despite this, I think the free services that Yahoo offers are worth a bit of spam and advertising. I get email and IM usage in return for a bit of spam and advertising. That's a fair trade in my opinion. Edited January 10, 2009 by TheMason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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