Yahoo Group Members & Web Beacons?

Got this info today, didn't remember seeing it discussed here:

"If you belong to any yahoo Groups this is important...

Sharing a tidbit of information:

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

This has been addressed before. The "web beacons" are just a graphics file with a specific name that Yahoo affiliates can include in their web pages. The web server that hosts the graphic logs the attempts to access the uniquely named files, thus determining which user it is.

This only works if th web site you are visiting has an agreement with Yahoo to share their information.

Yahoo has no way of knowing when you visit a web site not affiliated with Yahoo.


Of course, you should be aware that tracking has been happening since the early 90's. In addition, when you visit a web page, part of the HTTP transaction includes telling the server which web page referred you.

For instance, when you read this post, you display my avitar. That graphic is sitting on my server. My server logs the fact that this web page referred you and also logs your IP address. This is normal functioning for web servers.

Check the properties of your avatar, Gadget. You'll find that it's hosted on CPF, and not your server. Your server is only involved once. That's when it's downloaded into CPF's database.