Surprise! Yahoo! is following you.
HereÂ’s the deal: When you create an account with Yahoo!, youÂ’re asked to click on a button signifying that you agree to its terms for use of the service. Somewhere within their agreement, it says that unless you specifically tell Yahoo! not to, itÂ’ll track and record all your Internet activity, not just that associated with the service.
It does this by placing a small application on your hard drive that logs all the links you visit and then sends the data to Yahoo! What happens to that data is much less clear.
All subscription-based services have terms that you must agree to when you sign up. These agreements are generally composed of legal terms and other gobbledygook and usually are benign enough. But how many of us actually read these? We generally, and perhaps naively, rely on the service to fairly disclose what weÂ’re getting ourselves into before we agree to the terms.
In the case of Yahoo!, IÂ’m sure that within the text of the terms, it states that itÂ’ll be engaged in this data collection. And thereÂ’s a procedure to opt out of this. ItÂ’s not hard to do, just not clearly explained anywhere by Yahoo!
If, like me, you donÂ’t like the idea that some faceless company like Yahoo! is collecting information about your private online activities.
Yahoo! is as well-known and mainstream an Internet presence as any I can imagine. How many other online services do you suppose have a similar clause within their terms of use that allows them to collect your personal information? After all, it’s generally written in legalese, and again, how many of us actually take the time to read the entire text of the agreement before clicking the ‘‘accept" button?
Start reading those agreements.
How to turn it off
Monday, May 16, 2005
1.
Log in to your Yahoo! account.
2.
Put this URL into your browser’s address window: privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/. This will take you to a Web page where Yahoo! spells out its policies. Scroll down to the section about cookies; you’ll see a reference to ‘‘Web beacons."
3.
Click that link. It will take you to the page that explains how these things work. Scroll down a few paragraphs, and you’ll see the words ‘‘opt out" highlighted as a link
.
Click it to execute an opt-out command.
Note :
You have to set the optout function on every computer from which you access Yahoo! Source: Newport News Daily Press
HereÂ’s the deal: When you create an account with Yahoo!, youÂ’re asked to click on a button signifying that you agree to its terms for use of the service. Somewhere within their agreement, it says that unless you specifically tell Yahoo! not to, itÂ’ll track and record all your Internet activity, not just that associated with the service.
It does this by placing a small application on your hard drive that logs all the links you visit and then sends the data to Yahoo! What happens to that data is much less clear.
All subscription-based services have terms that you must agree to when you sign up. These agreements are generally composed of legal terms and other gobbledygook and usually are benign enough. But how many of us actually read these? We generally, and perhaps naively, rely on the service to fairly disclose what weÂ’re getting ourselves into before we agree to the terms.
In the case of Yahoo!, IÂ’m sure that within the text of the terms, it states that itÂ’ll be engaged in this data collection. And thereÂ’s a procedure to opt out of this. ItÂ’s not hard to do, just not clearly explained anywhere by Yahoo!
If, like me, you donÂ’t like the idea that some faceless company like Yahoo! is collecting information about your private online activities.
Yahoo! is as well-known and mainstream an Internet presence as any I can imagine. How many other online services do you suppose have a similar clause within their terms of use that allows them to collect your personal information? After all, it’s generally written in legalese, and again, how many of us actually take the time to read the entire text of the agreement before clicking the ‘‘accept" button?
Start reading those agreements.
How to turn it off
Monday, May 16, 2005
1.
Log in to your Yahoo! account.
2.
Put this URL into your browser’s address window: privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/. This will take you to a Web page where Yahoo! spells out its policies. Scroll down to the section about cookies; you’ll see a reference to ‘‘Web beacons."
3.
Click that link. It will take you to the page that explains how these things work. Scroll down a few paragraphs, and you’ll see the words ‘‘opt out" highlighted as a link
.
Click it to execute an opt-out command.
Note :
You have to set the optout function on every computer from which you access Yahoo! Source: Newport News Daily Press
