Provides Consumers with Greater Transparency and Control over Their Online Advertising Experience
WASHINGTON – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) released a beta version of a new consumer tool called Ad Interest Manager, which takes transparency in online advertising to a new level for building user trust. Ad Interest Manager http://privacy.yahoo.com/aim is a central place where Yahoo! visitors can see a concise summary of their online activity and make easy, constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo! Ad Network.
“Ads tailored to users’ interests make online experiences more compelling and user-focused, and the new tool Yahoo! is launching today will provide transparency into how Yahoo!’s interest-based advertising works,” said Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, Anne Toth. “Yahoo! is committed to providing consumers with increased transparency and control when they are online. Ad Interest Manager will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up-to-date information.” Anne Toth also pointed out: “Importantly, users who don’t want interest-based ads can turn them off completely.”
Yahoo!’s new Ad Interest Manager tool:
* Provides a central point where Yahoo! visitors can assert even greater control over their online experience.
* Gives visitors an unparalleled view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising.
* Shows the visitor both Yahoo!’s educated guesses about their interests and a summary of observations, along with other information they have provided.
* Provides a list of specific interest categories that Yahoo! has placed a user into and lets people turn those categories off.
* Allows people who don’t want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely.
“Yahoo! has long provided its users with products and services for free, thanks to a business model based almost entirely on advertising, and we’ve found that consumers are more likely to click on advertising that speaks directly to them and their interests,” said Yahoo! Vice President and General Manager of Display Advertising, David Zinman. “With the introduction of Ad Interest Manager, users can not only get a better understanding of how the process works, but they can also communicate better with Yahoo! and our advertisers about what most interests them.”
Yahoo!’s Ad Interest Manager is currently available in beta in the U.S. and will soon be made available to UK and European users. Planned future enhancements to the Ad Interest Manager will also let users add categories of interest that Yahoo! may have missed.
To see what the new Ad Interest Manager looks like and how it works, please visit http://privacy.yahoo.com/aim.
Yahoo! was one of the first companies to implement a layered privacy center http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html model more than eight years ago, which provides people with a central place to understand and control their privacy online, as well as their options when it comes to the use of personal data. This information is coupled with our industry-leading data-retention policy http://ycorpblog.com/2008/12/17/your-data-goes-incognito/, which anonymizes most Web log data within 90 days. The policy also strives to ensure that Yahoo! retains data only long enough to serve the business and create the highest-quality user experiences, while simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal obligations.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most trafficked Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo!’s vision is to be the center of people’s online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit http://pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal http://yodel.yahoo.com.
