Yahoo

by "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita(at)home.ro>

 Date:  Mon, 27 Jan 2003 08:21:21 +0200
 To:  <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
  todo: View Thread, Original
Hi all,

I've read the following on another list.
Does anyone how it technically works?

Thanks

Yahoo is now using something called "Web Beacons" to track Yahoo Group users
around the net and see what you're doing - similar to cookies.
Take a look at their updated privacy statement:
http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/pixels/details.html

About half-way down the page, in the section "Outside the Yahoo! Network",
you'll see a little "click here" link that will let you opt-out of their new
method of snooping. I recommend doing this. Once you have clicked that link,
you are opted out. Notice the "Success" message the top the next page. Be
careful because on that page there is a "Cancel Opt-out" button that, if
clicked, will *undo** the opt-out. Feel free to forward this to other groups

Here is the text on that page, concerning that info-gathering tool used by
Yahoo:
----snip snip snip ----
Yahoo! Privacy

Web Beacons

Web pages may contain electronic images (called a "single-pixel GIF" or "web
beacon") that allow a web site to count users who have visited that page or
to access certain cookies. Yahoo! uses web beacons in the following ways:
Within the Yahoo! Network: Yahoo! uses web beacons within the Yahoo! network
of web sites in order to count users and to recognize users by accessing
Yahoo! cookies. Being able to access Yahoo! cookies allows us to personalize
your experience when you visit Yahoo! web sites that are located both on and
off of the yahoo.com domain. For example, Yahoo! GeoCities pages are mostly
located on the geocities.com domain.
Outside the Yahoo! Network: Yahoo! uses web beacons to conduct research on
behalf of certain partners on their web sites and also for auditing
purposes. Information recorded through these web beacons is used to report
aggregate information about Yahoo! users to our partners. This aggregate
information may include demographic and usage information. No personally
identifiable information about you is shared with partners from this
research. 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.
HTML Mail: Yahoo!'s practice is to include web beacons in HTML-formatted
email messages (messages that include graphics) that Yahoo!, or its agents,
sends in order: to determine which email messages were opened and to note
whether a message was acted upon.
 In general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page, including an
ad banner, can act as a web beacon. Advertising networks that serve ads onto
Yahoo! may use web beacons in their advertisements.


Teddy,
Teddy's Center: http://teddy.fcc.ro/
Email: orasnita(at)home.ro

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