Reading Privacy Policies

Web Sites and the Collection of Personal Information

Many web sites, including Yahoo!, ask visitors for personal information. This information might be used to send a free newsletter, allow you to shop online, customize a web page, determine what advertisements to display, or allow you to enter a contest or game. There are many legitimate uses for personal information, But before you give out information about yourself or your child, carefully review a site's privacy policy.

A privacy policy is a statement that explains how the web site will treat the personal information it collects. Reading and understanding the policy will help you make an informed decision about whether or not you want to share personal information. A privacy policy should be:

• Easy to find. Many web sites have a link to a privacy policy somewhere on the front page (often on the bottom or on a sidebar), and on pages where they collect personal information. Yahoo!'s Privacy Policy is available via a link on the bottom of most pages throughout its products.
• Clear. The privacy policy should tell you what kinds of things they do and don't do with your personal information. Do they share it with anyone outside that company? Do they sell or rent their user lists? Can you opt out of third-party use of your information or remove yourself from a shared mailing list? And they should tell you how to update, change, or delete your information, or whom to contact if you have any questions about the policy.
• Specific about how they protect children’s privacy.
Many web sites are participants of TRUSTe or BBBOnLine®, a program of the Better Business Bureau. These are third-party seal programs that review the privacy policies and practices of their participants. Participants of both programs must meet and maintain a minimum standard of privacy protection before they are allowed to display a seal. In addition, both the TRUSTe and BBBOnLine® programs have special privacy seals for sites that collect information from kids or that have kids as their target audience.

Examples of Privacy Seals
TRUSTe Privacy Seal	TRUSTe Privacy Seal for Kids Sites	BBBOnLine Privacy Seal	BBBOnLine Privacy Seal for Kids Sites

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires sites that target kids or know that a visitor to their site is a child under the age of 13 to follow certain rules established by the Federal Trade Commission. For example, the site must get parental consent in order to collect personally identifying information from anyone under the age of 13. Yahoo! complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. For more information on children's privacy, visit the FTC's Kidz Privacy web site.

We encourage you to read privacy policies on the sites you visit, including the Yahoo! Privacy Policy.