We use pages you have recently visited on Yahoo!, ads you have viewed and clicked on Yahoo! or that we have delivered to you on other websites, and some of the searches you have conducted on Yahoo!. The information goes into computer-based algorithmic systems that help us to make an educated guess about your interests.
These preferences apply only to the Yahoo! advertising network. Yahoo! serves ads both on Yahoo! and on many other websites. Other ad networks may also serve ads on Yahoo!, but these preferences do not apply to these other ad networks. To see which ad networks serve ads on Yahoo!, visit our page about Third Party and Affiliate Cookies on Yahoo!. You can also see many other opt-out choices by visiting the NAI page.
This opt-out is automatically persistent if you are logged in when you execute the choice. Persistence means the opt-out will be refreshed each time you sign in to Yahoo!, and that it will apply across multiple browsers and devices used to access Yahoo!. If you aren’t sure about whether you are logged in, you should log in again before returning to the opt-out page.
We show you interest categories that you are eligible to receive customized ads for. Interest categories are based on a “scoring” system that categorizes many of your page views, page clicks, ad views, ad clicks, and searches. When a certain threshold is reached, you are eligible to receive ads that are associated with those interest categories.
In addition, advertisers ask Yahoo! to create custom interest categories specifically for them. For example, they may wish to show ads only to people who have visited a specific page on their site. These custom categories do not appear in our Ad Interest Manager. But if you choose to opt out of interest-based advertising, you will not receive any interest-based ads for any interest category.
There are several reasons AIM may display no history for your web browser. First, interest category placement only lasts for a short-period of time (exact time depends on the specific category), so if you’ve not had any recent activity at Yahoo! in a particular category AIM will no longer display that interest category for your web browser. Second, AIM is based on your web browser cookie, so if you clear your Yahoo! cookies on a regular basis, this could explain why you have no active interest categories.
Interest categorization is driven by multiple factors: searches, property activity, and ad interaction. As interest categorization is computer driven, the system attempts to take your collective activities and equate those to a suspected interest in a particular topic. Sometimes the system receives too little information to accurately determine your interests or the information it is provided may lead it to think you have multiple interests based on ambiguous meanings in the information provided. For example, a search on “Lake Placid” could mean interest in the travel, the Olympics, or even in horror movies (Betty White starred in “Lake Placid” - a film about a monstrous alligator). As your activities increase across Yahoo! properties, our systems will hopefully become better at predicting your interests to enhance the relevance of the content and advertising you experience.
Ad Interest Manager is a powerful tool that allows you to indicate and store advertising choices but also provides a view into what is used for other forms of advertising customization wherever Yahoo! serves ads. Once you opt out of an interest category you will no longer receive interest-based advertising for that interest category. There are, however, some custom interest categories that do not appear in the Ad Interest Manager tool. In addition, Yahoo! shows categories of searches and page views and topics on Yahoo! that might be used for ad customization that you cannot opt out of individually today. If you want to ensure you are opted out of ALL interest-based customization, you should opt out using the large opt-out button on the page.
These are relative measures of activity. For example, if you visit Yahoo! Sports less frequently than the average Sports visitor, you will register as a “low” frequency visitor. If you visit more often than the average Sports visitor, you will be shown as a “high” frequency visitor.
No, Yahoo!’s ad serving systems do not use information about visitors we know to be under the age of 13 to target interest-based advertising. We also do not create categories intended to target kids under the age of 13.
Health is a broad category with many subcategories. We believe that all health categories are not the same, so we examine each individually. Some types of health conditions, such as sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and mental health disorders, do not have interest categories represented in our advertising systems. Others, like cold and flu, dental, heartburn, and allergies do have interest categories represented in our advertising systems.
No. But an airline advertiser might want to show ads for vacation destinations to Yahoo! visitors who have shown an interest in those destinations. The advertiser gives us information about the audience they would like to reach. We show their ad on our sites and across our ad network to people who match the characteristics they have given us. We do not share lists of users with advertisers or other websites when an advertiser works with us on a customized ad campaign.
In many cases, the age and gender reflect the general demographics of the last person signed in on your computer. If your computer is used by multiple family members or if you are at an Internet café or library, we don’t store or display this information. We obtain information about your location through various methods such as when you register for a Yahoo! Account or have entered a location into Yahoo! Maps. We may use this information to customize the ads you see both on Yahoo! and other websites. For more information about how Yahoo! obtains information about your location, please visit our Yahoo! Location privacy page. To manage your location settings, please visit our Location Management Page.
No. Like most websites, Yahoo! is supported by advertising. The majority of the products and services we offer, such as web-based email with unlimited storage, photo sharing on Flickr, Yahoo! News and Finance, and many other services, are largely free of charge to you because we display advertising. Other websites also partner with Yahoo! to show ads on their sites to support what they offer.
Our systems can record and support up to eight interest-category opt-outs. If you have more than eight categories of interests shown and choose to remove eight of them, we will assume you don’t want to receive any interest-based ads.
If your browser does not accept third-party cookies or if you have a browser with specific privacy controls that you have edited to delete cookies after each session, you may not be able to opt out. Opt-outs rely on cookies to operate. But this should not concern you, because not accepting third-party cookies or allowing only session cookies prevents advertising customization.
Opt-outs are cookie based, so you can inadvertently delete them when you delete cookies on your browser or if you have antispyware software installed that deletes cookies regularly. If you have a Yahoo! account, you can associate your opt-out with your account so that it is refreshed each time you sign in to Yahoo!. There are other tools available that will restore opt-out cookies that you can install for your browser.
Yes, if you do not use the persistent opt-out that can be associated with a Yahoo! account. You'll have to check the opt-out page from time to time to ensure your opt-out is still active. But if you have enabled the persistent opt-out, your choice will be maintained. The opt-out will be reset the next time you sign in.
No, you can opt out without having a Yahoo! account or without signing in to your account. Just click the opt-out button. You will need to opt out separately for each browser that you use and check back from time to time to ensure that your opt-out was not deleted. This is a bit more work for you, so if you have a Yahoo! account, we encourage you to use the persistent opt-out feature.
Yes, you can simply change your choice on our Ad Interest Manager page.
Yahoo!’s policy is that an opt-out cookie expires 20 years after the date it was set. All other Yahoo! cookies should expire two years after they are set.
Yahoo! uses standard browser cookies for advertising customization. Yahoo! does not use “Flash Cookies” or other “local shared objects” for interest-based advertising. Read more about Yahoo!’s use of cookies.
Ad customization categories are a rolling average of a person’s interest. This means they change over time based on a person’s most recent activity on Yahoo!. Most categories have a lifespan of anywhere from a few days to a few months. We tend to believe people are more likely to be interested in ads that reflect more recent visits and activity.
To make our ads more relevant and useful for you, Yahoo! may make educated guesses about your interests based on your activity on our sites and services. When you use Yahoo! Mail, our automated systems scan and analyze your communications and also the content sent and received from your account to detect, among other things, certain words and phrases (we call them “keywords”) within these communications. In addition to using the keywords to show you contextually relevant content and ads , these keywords may also contribute to our understanding of things that interest you. These interest categories are displayed in Ad Interest Manager.
By opting out of interest-based ads, you will also opt out of receiving contextually relevant ads within Yahoo! Mail.