[e-privacy] Yahoo! Sets New Industry Privacy Standard

[Anonymous Remailer]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Yahoo-Sets-New-Industry-bw-13852689.html

Yahoo! Sets New Industry Privacy Standard with Data
Retention Policy

With Consumer-Friendly Standard, Yahoo! Sets 90-Day
Data Retention Policy


SUNNYVALE, Calif. & London--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Today, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO - News) announced a new
global data retention policy that sets an industry-leading
approach to user data privacy. This new policy strengthens
Yahoo!'s relationship of trust with its 500 million users
world-wide and enhances its longtime leadership on privacy.

Under the new policy, Yahoo! will anonymize user log data
within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security
and legal obligations. Yahoo! will also expand the policy
to apply not only to search log data but also page views,
page clicks, ad views and ad clicks.
"In our world of customized online services, responsible
use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining
user trust," said Anne Toth, Yahoo!'s Vice President of
Policy and Head of Privacy. "We know that our users expect
relevant and compelling content and advertising when they
visit Yahoo!, but they also want assurances that we are
focused on protecting their privacy."

Fueled by a focus on consumer privacy, regulators,
legislators and advocates from around the globe have asked
the industry to examine data policies with a focus on
retention periods.

Yahoo! conducted a comprehensive review of its data
practices across the globe. The heads of business and
engineering units worked with privacy and data governance
teams to thoroughly review data needs for global products
and services, striving to ensure that Yahoo! retains data
only long enough to serve our business and create the
highest quality user experiences while maintaining the
ability to fight fraud, secure systems, and meet legal
obligations.

Users won't see a difference in their experience with
Yahoo! products or services, and advertisers will continue
to leverage our innovative interest-based advertising
systems to deliver the most relevant ads to those users.

"This policy represents Yahoo!'s assessment of the minimum
amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond
to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted
relationship with users," continued Toth. "We're proud
this new policy sets a new benchmark for the industry."

To protect users and our business partners, there will be
some specific and limited exceptions to the anonymization
policy. In order to fight fraud and preserve system security,
Yahoo! will retain system specific data in identifiable
form for no more than 6 months -- but only for this purpose.
Yahoo! may have to retain data for longer periods to meet
other legal obligations.

This week, the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe released their
Most Trusted Companies for Privacy survey with Yahoo!
ranking as the 14th overall trusted company and the highest
ranked search engine appearing on the list.