Yahoo! Local Safety Guide

What is Yahoo! Local?

Yahoo! Local lists businesses, events, and attractions by area. It helps people find local information, pinpoint local businesses on a map, and read other people’s recommendations. You could use Yahoo! Local to find the best pizza in town or to recommend a bike shop with good customer service. To learn more, check out Yahoo! Local Help.

What are some potential risks on Yahoo! Local?

Everyone on Yahoo! Local must follow the Yahoo! Local Terms of Service .

Just as there may be risks in the town where you live, the Yahoo! Local community may pose certain risks. Yahoo! Local has a number of safety features, but you have to take care of yourself too.

Start with some of our general tips for online safety. Then, when using Yahoo! Local, keep these things in mind:

• Protect personal information. Yahoo! Local’s content is publicly accessible. If you post any personal information in collections or reviews, it could be used by strangers to identify and contact you. These people could potentially expose you to unpleasant, sexually suggestive, or abusive language.
• Harassment. If you create a public collection or post reviews under a real Yahoo! ID, people could potentially identify and contact you. Again, this possibly exposes you to inappropriate language.
• Mature content. Yahoo! Local’s Terms of Service does not permit posting adult content. Please report any inappropriate material to Yahoo!.

What can be done to limit these risks? Review Yahoo! Local’s safety features, learn how to report abuse, and ask your parents or caregivers for help staying safer on Yahoo! Local.

What safety features should I know about to help protect myself on Yahoo! Local?

Yahoo! Local has a number of safety features to limit risks. You should know how to do the following:

• Manage collections. A collections is a customized list of your favorite restaurants and businesses. If you include a lot of personal details in these lists, a stranger could potentially use your collections to figure out where you live or spend time.
  • If you share a collection, you can choose to be identified publicly as “a Yahoo! Local user” or you can create an alias instead of showing your real Yahoo! ID.
  • Collections can also be made completely private. To set these options, use the pull-down menus displayed when you create a new collection, or go to the My Local page to change the settings for an existing collection.
  • If you collection is public, other people on Yahoo! Local may post comments about it. To delete an inappropriate or offensive remark, click the delete link after the comment.
• Post reviews. If you post reviews, you can choose to be identified publicly as “a Yahoo! Local user” or you can create an alias instead of showing your real Yahoo! ID. Yahoo! Local’s Review Guidelines have more details about writing reviews.
• Report inappropriate photos. People on Yahoo! Local can add a photo to a business listing. If you find a photo that contains adult-oriented or otherwise offensive content, you can click the Flag as inappropriate photo link to report it to Yahoo!.
• Report abuse to Yahoo!. Report any offensive content or inappropriate contact with others by filling out the Yahoo! Local report abuse form. Links to this form are at the top of any collection page and beside each review for a business listing.

How can I report problems on Yahoo! Local?

Yahoo! Local has a customer care form to report abuse. Please complete this form if you are exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates the Yahoo! Local Terms of Service. Make sure to provide specific information about the location of the offending content and the identity of the user in question.

Yahoo!’s customer care team receives abuse reports and takes appropriate action as necessary, which may include deactivating an abuser’s account. Reports that indicate activity involving child pornography or solicitation of a minor are dealt with promptly by Yahoo!’s legal team and, when appropriate, reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

What can I do to use Yahoo! Local in a safer manner?

Yahoo! is committed to providing a safe online experience for everyone and, accordingly, complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Yahoo! Local provides a number of safety features to limit potential risks. However, protecting children online is a responsibility shared with parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

You should start by learning some basic practices for online safety. These include safeguarding identity online, keeping passwords secret, being cautious about contact with strangers, and creating a family pledge for online safety.

If you are exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates the Yahoo! Local Terms of Service, please report the abuse.