Report: Yahoo To Let Users Shut Out BT Ads
ADOTAS – Yahoo is going to give users the option of spurning targeted ads, according to a report in The Washington Post.
The decision is most likely a pre-emptive move in the wake of widespread privacy concerns in the online advertising industry as a whole. The House Committee on Energy and Congress recently asked Yahoo and 32 other companies to fork over information on the Web-surfing data they collect to launch targeted ad campaigns.
Yahoo already offers an opt-out option for users who don’t want targeted ads delivered by Yahoo to third-party sites, but this change will affect many more users and could signal a sea change in the BT industry as a whole. Targeted ads are clearly much more efficient money-makers than random display ads, but most consumers would choose to opt out if given the chance, the Post reports.
The Internet pioneer’s decision to let users opt-out will probably not satisfy the fiercest privacy advocates because the company would still collect the data on surfers’ habits – an activity it deems necessary for a variety of reasons.
“As a business, we collect data for many reasons, including legal reporting, fraud detection, financial auditing, law enforcement compliance and research to improve our services,” Kelley Benander, a Yahoo spokeswoman, told the Post.
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