Online services have a lot of information on their users and, despite most claiming that they respect user privacy and don’t abuse all the data, it’s easy to understand why many people but also government agencies and citizen rights groups are concerned about the increasing dependency on online services and the fact that most just ask users to trust them, but don’t really offer any way for them to view or adjust what data is stored and tracked. There have been some moves in that direction though and the most recent one comes from Yahoo which has launched a tool dubbed Ad Interest Manager which enable users to review and control the targeted ads they get served by Yahoo.
“Ads tailored to users’ interests make online experiences more compelling and user-focused, and the new tool Yahoo! is launching today will provide transparency into how Yahoo!’s interest-based advertising works,” Yahoo! Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, Anne Toth said.
“Yahoo! is committed to providing consumers with increased transparency and control when they are online. Ad Interest Manager will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up-to-date information,” she added. “Importantly, users who don’t want interest-based ads can turn them off completely.”<... (read more)