YAHOO SNOOPING

1546 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by loviatar, Jan 1, 2007

Brian Considine

Discussion Starter · Dec 31, 2006

This may or may not be relavent to you, but I've just found this on another forum that I visit ;

File - read & forward

Yahoo is now using something called "Web Beacons" to track Yahoo
Group users around the Net and see what you're doing and where you
are going similar to cookies.

Yahoo is recording every website and every group you visit. Take a
look at their updated privacy statement:

http://privacy. yahoo.com/ privacy

About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will
see a link that says web beacons. Click on the phrase "web beacons".

That will bring you to a paragraph entitled "Outside the Yahoo
Network."In this section you'll see a little "click here to opt
out"link that will let you "opt-out" of their new method of snooping.

Once you have clicked that link, you are exempted. Notice
the "Success" message on the top of the next page.

Be careful, because on that same page there is a "Cancel Opt-out" button
that, if clicked, will *undo* the opt-out.

If Yahoo are doing it who else will be ?

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Gary

· #2 · Dec 31, 2006 (Edited by Moderator)

Tesco, Google, the British Government, the FBI....

You name it they all want to know more about you and your habits!

The only way around this if you are bothered is to get anonymiser software which generates a false IP random address which changes every 30 seconds or so however this does slow your surfing.

Rightly or wrongly I would guess the average railway modeller is not the sort of individual who is too bothered by snooping as it tends to be a clean living family hobby enjoyed by fairly normal folk.

Would anybody here dispute this?

Happy modelling
Gary

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Gwent rail

· #3 · Dec 31, 2006

Not bothered about people knowing where I surf, Gary, but I do object to any organisation who records such data for their own use. Especially without my agreement.

The phrase "thin end of the wedge" springs to mind here!!

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loviatar

· #4 · Dec 31, 2006

Not too bothered about snooping either - In fact the thought of some marketing chap looking at my details and thinking "what exactly am I supposed to sell to this guy?" somewhat amuses me. As for "fairly normal folk" I think the general public sees us differently - the terms trainspotter and chuffernutter spring to mind. So why is it that if five blokes sit in the pub talking about won this or that football match it is seen as "cool" but if the same five chaps sit talking about loco differences we are suddenly all nerds? Both groups have a head for facts and figures!

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bangerblueed

· #5 · Dec 31, 2006

It will be interesting to see if other web companies adopt this I know that my isp is always offering me entry into prize draws but you never win and get inundated by junk mail as a result this might well be the main purpose of tracking you to see what your interests are and to sell your email address to companies marketing anything remotely connected to the type of sites you look at

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neil_s_wood

· #6 · Jan 1, 2007

When I signed up for Photobucket I got asked if I was interested in completing surveys. I stupidly said yes and ever since my email has been clogged up with all sorts of bo

ks. The problem is if you use a yahoo mail account they can profile you and clog your email inbox with spam. I could do without it really.

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loviatar

· #7 · Jan 1, 2007

I'm with yahoo and I don't seem to get much spam - as long as you have "block html graphics" turned on the spammers dont know your email address is a live one - there are apparently little cookies and suchlike that tell the spammer if you have looked at the pictures/graphics.

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