Lifelong Learning: Electronic Rights

A number of local organizations use Yahoo Groups for their inter-group communications. James McMurry notes that Yahoo is now tracking your usage per MACHINE via web beacons:

The following message was sent to me by the moderator of another group that I'm in. Everyone needs to be aware of it as Yahoo is tracking people now, even when they are not on the Yahoo site.

If you belong to ANY Yahoo Groups - be aware that Yahoo is now using "Web Beacons" to track every Yahoo Group user. It's similar to cookies, but allows Yahoo to record every website and every group you visit, even when you're not connected to Yahoo.

Look at their updated privacy statement at: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy. About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will see a link that says WEB BEACONS.

Ray Everett-Church posts a counterpoint to this matter.

In my view a blog is a far more effective, and safe tool to use for group activities. We're happy to help set one up for you. Just email zellmer at mailbag_dot_com Safe computing - think, be aware and practice it :) The EFF has more on privacy and other electronic rights topics.

UPDATE: Another approach via Apple's iTunes: ask permission.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 18, 2006 3:02 PM
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