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Security Protection - Harry Waldron (CS)

Security Best Practices, Breaking News, & Updates

Yahoo Web Beacons "super tracking cookies" - How to Opt-out

  Below is a recent discovery that can further improve your Internet privacy if you use Yahoo's free email services.

LINKS on how web beacons work
http://www.grabageek.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=326
http://castlecops.com/article-5787-nested-0-0.html

quote:  Yahoo is using something called "Web beacons" or a "super cookie" that tracks not only where its users go on the Yahoo network but also tracks where they go outside of the Yahoo network using a persistent file on the hard drive. Note that you have to have a Yahoo account to be tracked. If you want to opt-out of this tracking, log in to your Yahoo account, then go to privacy yahoo.com/privacy.

STEPS TO OPT-OUT OF THE "WEB BEACONS" TRACKING FACILITY

1. Make sure you are signed on to your Yahoo account.

2. Go to this site to start this process

http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy

3. Find the "Cookies" Information section on Yahoo's Privacy Page and then locate this specific bullet point that discusses web beacons:

* Yahoo! uses web beacons to access Yahoo! cookies inside and outside our network of web sites and in connection with Yahoo! products and services.

4. Click on the web beacons link (as noted in bold above):

5. On the web beacons information page, find this paragraph:

When conducting research Yahoo!'s practice is to require our partners to disclose the presence of these web beacons on their pages in their privacy policies and state what choices are available to users regarding the collection and use of this information. You may choose to opt-out of Yahoo! using this information for this research. Please click here to opt-out.

6. Click on the Opt-out link (as noted in bold above)

7. After clicking on the link, you are done. You'll see the following confirmation for the opt-out process:.

quote:  You have opted out successfully. If you would like to cancel your opt-out request, you may do so by clicking the button below

8. Please do not click on the button shown on this page or you'll opt back into using web beacons.

9. I would then suggest deleting all cookies, or at least signing off and signing back on again with your Yahoo email account. If you use multiple browsers, clear the cookies out in each one.

10. If you have more than one Yahoo account, repeat this process for each specific account.

Posted: Mar 09 2005, 10:23 AM by Harry Waldron | with 6 comment(s)

Comments

jimm said:

Umm, I would think that Yahoo stores your opt-out choice as a cookie. So if you delete cookies after opting out of Yahoo web beacons, you're deleting your opt-out. Note that Yahoo states that "This opt-out applies to a specific browser rather than a specific user." This info would be compatible with a cookie mechanism to store the opt-out info.

# June 2, 2007 9:02 PM

nv_1desertrat@yahoo.com said:

Please opt me out of all web beacon tracking. I do not want my information used by Yahoo! or anyone else.

# February 23, 2008 10:41 PM

A White said:

 When I tried to opt-out, the 'link to opt-out page, in the paragraph specified above, the link didn't work; only the words'' (link to opt-out page)'' showed. Can't help but think that Yahoo are doing that on purpose, making it difficult/impossible to opt out.

 If what Jimm said is true, every time I delete the cookies on my computer, the opt-out clause (which I can't access) disappears anyway! Nightmare.

# May 1, 2008 3:00 AM

Sad News said:

How sad, deceiving and Big Brother!!! According to Yahoo's own page, not all these beacons can be deleted.  So, in essence, every movement is tracked at some level and there is no privacy. . . and no surprise, at&t is partnered this invasion of privacy.

# October 10, 2008 9:22 AM

Robert Davis said:

If you are using Firefox with Adblock Plus, disable it for the page with the opt-out button and refresh.  The button will then be shown.

# January 5, 2009 9:33 PM

B. J. said:

I don't get it.  Can I find something in my registry that I can change so that

I can really, really opt-out?

I only have good things to write about Yahoo.  They are honest beyond abstraction.

They have made it  perfectly clear to me that their description of my privacy is absurdity, babble, balderdash, baloney, bananas, blather, bombast, BS, bull, bunk, claptrap, craziness, drivel, fatuity, flightiness, folly, foolishness, fun, gab, gas, gibberish, giddiness, gobbledygook, hogwash, hooey, hot air, imprudence, inanity, irrationality, jazz, jest, jive, joke, ludicrousness, madness, mumbo jumbo, palaver, poppycock, prattle, pretense, ranting, rashness, rot, rubbish, scrawl, scribble, senselessness, silliness, soft soap, stupidity, thoughtlessness, trash, tripe, twaddle or some arbitrary, nonlinear combination of the above.

# April 26, 2009 7:32 PM