>> It would appear that Yahoo has a Group Snoop feature that may affect you >> if you're a member of their groups. >> you can read about it at the following URL which doesn't filter content: >> >> http://www.zerobeat.net/webbeacons.shtml > > Thanks to Thom for the heads up on this. I guess you can't blame Yahoo for > trying to leverage the odd fraction of a penny here and there from the > internet, but in turn, they can't blame us if we don't want banners ads and > stuff when we are surfing.
There's a certain undue paranoia in all of this. A Web Beacon, as Yahoo discloses, is not a special file or program but rather is any file that is referenced on the Web page and served from Yahoo servers. When you access a file from Yahoo (say, for example, a Yahoo banner ad on a third-party site), it's trivial for Yahoo to note your IP address and, by virtue of what file you're asking for, what Web page you're on. Yahoo is merely saying that they are not ignorant of this information, and may make use of it. This information is not unique to Yahoo. It is collected on virtually every server you visit through automated log files. If, for example, YOU create a Web page that uses an image from my site (please ask first!) by referencing it directly from my server instead of referencing a copy of the image from your server, my Web logs will end up with a record of every IP address that visits your page (i.e. because your page referenced my file). From this, I can tell how many people visited your page. By analyzing the IP addresses, I may be able to derive additional information - such as who each visitor works for or where they live. To clarify, I'm not saying that YAHOO has the ability to collect this information on virtually every server you visit, but rather that the collection of the kind of information Yahoo claims to collect is done by every other Web site you've ever visited. There's nothing tricky about it. Yahoo is only saying that when THEY collect the information, they may use it to determine where people are going on the Web. When you go to the shopping mall you are in public. There could be marketing goons behind one-way mirrors making notes of your gender, apparent age, and which stores you visit. There could be private investigators photographing you without your knowledge. There could be friends and acquaintences making a note of who you're with or what you bought without necessarily telling you they're there. When you do things in public, you reveal things about yourself whether you like it or not. When you're out in public there is a feeling of anonymity that derives from the number of other people who are out in public. There's a feeling that your particular actions are private simply because with so many people doing so many similar things as you, who'd ever notice what one particular individual is doing? This same feeling and situation extends to your Web surfing. Sitting in the privacy of your home or office while millions of other people browse, shop, hack, play, gamble, and fornicate online gives an impression of anonymity and privacy that simply doesn't exist. When Yahoo does the Right Thing and discloses that it, in fact, is behind a one-way mirror watching you, this violates your unfounded expectation of privacy and sounds like they're doing something underhanded when in fact they're just paying attention to things you're doing to which anyone else could also be paying attention but without telling you. As soon as you come to terms with the fact that nothing you do online is private, all of this will begin to bother you a whole lot less. Craig NZ0R K1 #1966 K2 #4941 _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
