“Last week Yahoo announced that it would no longer be honoring Do Not Track requests from browsers accessing the search engine and associated services,” Electronista reports.
“The move comes as the company attempts to provide a more personal experience to users, bringing policies in line with other companies that ignore Do Not Track requests such as Facebook and Google,” Electronista reports. “This comes as a reversal to previous statements made by the company who claims to be ‘the first major tech company to implement Do Not Track.'”
“The change means that Yahoo will be ignoring browser settings which would have applied Do Not Track settings for all websites visited at the request of the user,” Electronista reports. “However, the privacy of users ‘is and will continue to be a top priority’ for the company.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
What is privacy, if everything you do is recorded? I mean is Yahoo, Facebook, and Google, your local confessional?
Android/Google users don’t mind. They love it when their searches for Viagra, Rashes, Burning Sensation, Severe Jock Itch, Leaking Somewhere are mined and sent to vendors for all to see.
Forget ye not all the searches about ‘Low T’, Depends, Humira, Xarelto, Victoza, Enbrel, Latuda, Xeljanz, Osphema, Pradaxa, Botox.… Let’s be sure to tell the friendly marketing folks all about our health problems, monthly afflictions, sexual inadequacies, blahblahblah. They’re only here to help. 🙄
Yes folks: Privacy is a natural right. Protect it or lose it.
wait, what is this Yahoo you speak of?
No surprise here. The reality is Yahoo! saw reduced revenues from advertisers (and those advertisers switching to Google and Facebook) because of the Do Not Track policy. The truth is hits and searches conducted are much less valuable if you can’t track the user or know much about him/her.
No picture of Marissa?
I ditched Google search a long time ago, and I try to avoid Google products/services of any type. Being a long time Mac user who carries a grudge against Microsoft, I never have been a fan of Bing. That left Yahoo as a possible candidate.
The change resulting from this announcement is that I will no longer occasionally employ Yahoo for my web search needs. If Yahoo cannot honor my request, then I will avoid their services (across the board, not just search) to the extent possible. I already use DuckDuckGo for the majority of my web searches. From now on, I will stick even closer to DuckDuckGo for search and Apple for maps.
Yahoo search is powered by Bing.
Yes, I concur, everyone should use DuckDuckGo for search. It’s a silly name, but it works exceedingly well and the company takes the issues of user privacy and anonymity very seriously. Give it a try.
If more and more of us simply stop using Google and Yahoo for search, those companies will eventually pay attention. Let’s hit ’em where it hurts!
Blekko.com
use either duck duck go or blekko in the epic browser…
perfect cloak
DuckDuckGo is silly but Yahoo is even worse. I am not a ‘yahoo’ and don’t live in the Ozark. I have avoided Yahoo ever since they were available. I have just installed the DDG extension into Safari and will see how well it works for me.
DuckDuckGo and Yahoo are silly, but Google is not? Step back. Do you not realise how ludicrous that sounds?
Yes, they do sound silly. Yahoo is often used to describe a person as well as an exclamation. Googolplex is a term I am familiar with in math and refers to a very large number and of course, Duck duck go is similar to a silly child’s game.
Google is reminiscent of Barney Google, a comic strip character supplanted by the yahoo Snuffy Smith, and bears no relation to the exponent games nor to the Russian dramatist Nikolai Gogol. The search giant does have a location they named the Googleplex, which is in the title of a new book by Rebecca Goldstein about Plato, whose personality we know only through his modeling of Socrates’ dialogues — and who I compared recently in this space with YOU.
Try to avoid any proffered cups of hemlock.
I remain mostly unscathed from the darts and arrows slung here and avoid any offered beverages from my fellow blog posters. I believe I found old wedding photos of you on the net using DDG. Did you know that they still exist?
I destroyed the photos for a reason & I don’t care to look upon ‘it’ ever since I had my life back. Btw do you have a view of the Red Sea? Or is that over
By the way, Yahoo, if your plan is to tie yourself more closely to Apple and become the default provider for iOS and OS X search and other services, then you might want to rethink how you treat your “customers.” When it comes to privacy and tracking users, Apple thinks a bit differently. Your new policy is contrary to Apple’s approach.
Ya-who?
Well ya who, like they say in Tangyanyika – sayonara.
I stopped reading the news on Yahoo.
She can take that big red ball and shove it. 😛
I’m surprised there isn’t any software out there that can disable these tracking cookies. Or better yet, send them back incorrect data…
lol there is, but for some reason MDN won’t let me post the name of it.
it’s even available on the app store.
And the search words are: do not track – is it?
hint: it’s really “spooky,”
On Mac, there are two major competing cookie killing applications. I own both and find they actually complement each other as neither is entirely adequate. [Names removed to protect MDN marketing]
There are also several browser add-ons that perform similar functions. The best are on Firefox, hands down. There is one in particular that I absolutely love as it, ahem, self-destructs all of a site’s cookies as soon as you close its tab in the browser. It also, ahem, self-destructs 3rd party cookies that have nothing directly to do with any site you visit. The effect can be dramatic.
(I’m hoping to write up an article series about cookie control in the near future. There is a lot of hazy information about exactly what a ‘tracking cookie’ or ‘Evercookie’ is, and I’m not going to write about them until I understand them adequately).
“Search” engines if they ignore your “do not track” should be required to change to their name to “tracking” engines.
When a user goes to type in the “Address and Search” area it should read “Address, Track and Search”
When it returns a result it should be set have the browser title bar say “Find me somewhere to eat – Google Track and Search”
When a result is returned it should be required to show:
Showing 15 of the results that were bought (red *)
Showing 10 of the results that were a result of tracked history (orange *)
When it returns a result the “sell your search to the highest bidder engine” they should be required to highlight results that were “paid” for as a result of the bidding for your search.
In your account settings you should see a dollar value assigned to your search history. You know, “true in Google analytics” that analyzes and shows you how Google buys and trades your information.
Honesty in business.
All “sell the search to the highest bidder engines” like Google, Bing and Yahoo should not be allowed to falsely portray their business purpose. You are not the customer, you are the hunted that is being sold to their real customer.
Oh, and “do not track” should become “track me” as an opt in choice. Violations must enforced by law with triple damages being paid by willful infringers based upon the dollar value they sold you for.
Full disclosure, dream on…
grr no edit and my bad typing
“true in Google analytics”
should read “Truth in Google Analytics”
F google. F yahoo. F the rest that do not honor ‘do not track’
What’s Yahoo?
The direct response to Yahoo, ad nauseam, denying ‘Do Not Track’ requests:
PRIVACY BADGER
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/privacy-badger
EFF is launching a new extension for Firefox and Chrome called Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger automatically detects and blocks spying ads around the Web, and the invisible trackers that feed information to them. You can try it out today.
Privacy Badger is EFF’s answer to intrusive and objectionable practices in the online advertising industry, and many advertisers’ outright refusal to meaningfully honor Do Not Track requests. This week, Mozilla published research showing that privacy is the single most important thing that users want from their web browsers. Privacy Badger is part of EFF’s growing campaign to deliver that privacy by giving you the technical means to disallow trackers within the pages you read on the Web.
This is an alpha release; we’ve been using it internally and don’t think it’s too buggy. But we’re looking for intrepid users to try it out and let us know before we encourage millions of people to install it. If you find bugs, you can file them on github against either the Firefox or Chrome repos as appropriate.
NOTE: One glaring problem with Privacy Badger at the moment is that it’s Apple Safari illiterate. EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is requesting assistance in correcting this deficiency.