Yahoo is the latest company ignoring Web users’ requests for privacy

Yahoo yesterday announced that it will stop complying with Do Not Track signals that Web browsers send on behalf of users who wish to not be monitored for advertising purposes.

Arstechnica reports that Yahoo will no longer honor any HTTP requests to not track user activity.

Yahoo noted yesterday that “users can still manage their privacy on Yahoo while benefiting from a personalized web experience. We encourage our users to tailor their online experience through the variety of privacy tools we offer within our own platform, accessible via our Yahoo Privacy Centre”

So Yahoo has taken it upon themselves to dicate what the best "web experieance' is for me, even when I explicitly tell them I do not want to interact with their services in this specific manner.

Nice to know that Yahoo knows what's 'best' for me.

Oh wait, they don't.

What Yahoo knows, is that by following the 'Do Not track' conventions, it makes it much harder for Yahoo to show me targeted advertising..

The larger problem is that Yahoo isn't the only large web company ignoring Do Not Track instructions: See here for a full list. Also bear in mind that;

Yahoo isn't an outlier here. Although Google's Chrome browser can send Do Not Track requests, a Google Do Not Track page that hasn't been updated since October 2012 says, "At this time, most web services, including Google's, do not alter their behavior or change their services upon receiving Do Not Track requests." The list of companies adhering to Do not Track is a short one, although some big names like Twitter and Pinterest are on there.

As turning on 'Do Not track' is a conscious choice you have to make whilst using the Net, then I'm guessing you are clued-up enough to not want to have your browsing behaviour tracked. I wish that not using any Yahoo services were an easy and simple way to illustrate to Yahoo why ignoring customer wishes is a bad business model, the trouble is that the list of Yahoo owned online services is quite extensive.

My own particular weakness here is Flickr, which Yahoo bought in early 2005.

Looks like I'll have to find (or self host) a different photo sharing platform from now, on because I don't support this latest move by Yahoo at all.

Jee Young Lee creates highly elaborate scenes that require an incredible amount of patience and absolutely no photo manipulation. For weeks and sometimes months, the young Korean artist works in the confines of her small 360 x 410 x 240 cm studio bringing to life worlds that defy all logic. In the middle of the sets you can always find the artist herself, as these are self-portraits but of the unconventional kind. Inspired by either her personal life or old Korean fables, they each have their own backstory, which of course, only adds to the intense drama.

This is an example of Jee Lee's work:

As someone interested in diorama art, this is fascinating to me.