Yahoo today unveiled a platform giving users more control over how Yahoo profiles them for behavioral ad targeting. The system, similar to one offered by Google, lets users view the types of information tracked and stored by Yahoo, adjust how they’re categorized, and opt out of being targeted on Yahoo and its publisher partner sites.

 

“We’re pulling back the veil a little bit, ” said Anne Toth, Yahoo VP of policy and head of privacy, adding the company recognizes how important online data privacy is to legislators and regulators.

 

The Ad Interest Manager system displays which content categories — such as auto, mail, or entertainment — Yahoo associates with a user, exposing how they’re profiled based on their searches and which pages they visit. It also attributes a score of low, medium, or high depending on how much interest users show in particular categories. Until now, the company has allowed users to opt out of behavioral ad targeting, but has not displayed their targeting profiles before, nor let them alter their interest categories.

 

As with Google’s Ads Preferences Manager, users can edit the interests the system attributes to them. Yahoo said the tool differs from Google’s because it shows users examples of pages and searches that informed how they’re categorized.

 

According to David Zinman, Yahoo VP and GM for display advertising in North America, the Yahoo tool exposes categorization “in near real-time,” and enables changes to Yahoo’s ad targeting system based on users’ edits “in near real-time as well.”

 

And of course, today in Washington, DC, the FTC is hosting a day-long public roundtable discussion on issues related to collection and use of consumer data, including behavioral advertising….isn’t it ironic!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under Internet Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.