Yahoo Starts 'Do Not Track' This Summer

This week Yahoo Inc has announced that they'll offer their own "Do Not Track" feature on all of their associated websites by this summer. What we've learned over the past few weeks about how much and how often search engines, web browsers, and other web giants track us has been shocking, to say the least, and Yahoo appears to be joining the fray of groups attempting to win back customers turned off by such allegations. This feature will provide customers with a peace of mind, Yahoo hopes, that at this moment will come from nothing else but those three words: Do Not Track.

As Yahoo states, their solution this summer will be to "provide a simple step for consumers to express their ad-targeting preferences to Yahoo." This will take care of one aspect of the equation, of course, that being the search company's taking in of your browsing and clicking information for application to targeted ads. Google, another of the giant companies being held accountable for their tracking implementation, is looking to initiate a similar set of controls for their Chrome browser by the end of 2012.

The Do Not Track siren call has come to a head this Spring as the FTC has promised to initiate a ruling on the situation by the end of the year. The FTC will work with companies around the market to have them bring Do Not Track options to their products and comply with a similar call to order made by Washington earlier this year as well. Google's latest step in allowing users to track themselves – or at least see how they're tracked month to month, was also revealed this morning under the name Account Activity. We expect similar systems in the near future from essentially every giant web company on earth.

[via LATimes]