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Yahoo to roll out Do Not Track solution by summer

Yahoo is to implement Do Not Track headers into its range of online services, as the issue of advertising tracking remains a prominent issue for Web users.
Written by Zack Whittaker, Contributor

Yahoo announced this morning the implementation of its Do Not Track solution for its online services, as continued pressure mounts on the industry to reduce ad-tracking of its service users.

The header will be rolled out across Yahoo's global network by late spring or early summer, a feature which has been in planning "for the past year". It aims to give both business and consumer users of its online portal services a simple step to determine their advertising preferences and ad-targeting while on Yahoo-owned sites.

It follows Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft as part of the industry-wide effort to take Do Not Track features mainstream, after user privacy fears erupted in 2009-10.

In short, a Do Not Track header, implemented in the header area of the site's code, would limit how far adverts and tracking cookies could monitor online activity. Implementing the feature is not difficult per se, but it allows an opt-out solution to those wishing to browse the Web without advertising tracking.

Currently going through the W3C standardisation process, adding the code to websites is a step in the right direction. However, browsers are increasingly becoming the target of industry pressure to enable such features to act as a blanket system for preventing online tracking.

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