[PLUG] OT: Yahoo! is watching you...

Jason Van Cleve jason at vancleve.com
Sat Apr 20 07:14:10 UTC 2002


Just a detail, but one worth bringing up:  I think saying these Web bugs can
"follow you around on the Internet" is rather inaccurate.  They operate on
the Web servers and do not attach to your browser, so if you browse to a
site that has no such bugs in its pages, the bugs cannot follow you there,
and Yahoo loses track.  The transparent image has to be included in every
page which is to be tracked.  So they can't know "everything you do".

It sounds like Yahoo is trying to get as many sites as possible to include
their own "beacons" on these sites' pages, so that if you were to browse
between several of them consecutively, Yahoo would have a log of your
activity among these participating sites (and they would know you navigated
directly from site A to site B, because of the "referring URL" header that
is normally sent with each request).  Anyway, as a Web developer, I can tell
you this can be done in other ways than by using a single-pixel image, and
it's nothing new.

--Jason Van Cleve


> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org
> [mailto:plug-admin at lists.pdxlinux.org]On Behalf Of Sandy Herring
> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 4:01 PM
> To: Penguin Pen Pals
> Subject: [PLUG] OT: Yahoo! is watching you...
>
>
> ********************************************************************
> Very important information about Web "Beacons" Bugs (the real name) and
> Yahoo PRIVACY Policy. On the web site you will see in the privacy
> statement
> a reference to "WebBeacons" you need to click on the OPT-OUT button to
> opt-out. If you don't Yahoo will follow you around on the
> Internet tracking
> the sites you visit and every thing you do and sends this info
> back to Yahoo
> for "marketing" info.
>
> It is an invasion of your privacy, but it is still legal. You can
> "opt out"
> of the web beacons by going to
>
> http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/pixels/details.html
> (opt-out link is embedded in the text about halfway down the page)
>
> Make sure you read their fine print. This is from their policy statement:
>
> Note: This opt-out applies to a specific browser rather than a specific
> user. Therefore you will have to opt-out separately from each computer or
> browser that you use.
>
>
>
> *bastids*!
> Sandy
> --
> Sandy Herring, RHCE                        o
> sandy at herring.org
> Peck of Pickled Pisces               __  o
http://herring.org/
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