Today I testified before the House Energy & Commerce Committee at a hearing titled “Behavioral Advertising: Industry Practices and Consumers’ Expectations.” The Committee has been examining consumer privacy issues for Internet advertising and wants to understand what companies are doing to protect people.

In my remarks today (which you can find here – PDF), I conveyed Yahoo!’s long leadership on privacy matters and shared our comprehensive approach to this issue. We believe the best approach to user privacy is one that provides people with plenty of transparency, gives them a chance to opt-out of things they don’t want, and educates them about their choices, while also putting limits on how much information we hold and how long we it.

Last December we announced an industry-leading data retention policy, which the New York Times described as “…an encouraging development for the cause of Internet privacy.” We now hold your data in identifiable form for just 90 days (with some limited exceptions) — the shortest duration in the industry. And we apply it to the widest array of data, far outpacing our competitors.

Most people recognize and accept that online advertising fuels the largely free Internet economy. Their only caveat often is that if they do have advertising, they want to see ads that are relevant to their needs and interests — and I often hear from them when it’s not. We want every page on Yahoo! to be relevant and compelling both in terms of content and advertising. This marriage provides the best possible user experience and it is what Yahoo! is all about.

But we understand that not all users share the same views, so Yahoo! makes an opt out available. For most online advertising, we believe a good opt out paired with responsible data retention policies is the right default setting. It offers meaningful privacy protections while providing the best possible user experience. A good opt out needs to be prominent, readily accessible, clearly conveyed, and have options for persistency. Yahoo! has been working to ensure that our opt out is exactly that. Head to our Privacy Center for more on how to manage your preferences.

Privacy is at the core of our trusted relationship with more than 500 million users around the globe. In my more than 11 years of overseeing our policy decisions, I’ve learned that advances in consumer protection are most often driven by the industry and we hope that Congress will consider an approach that allows us to continue keeping pace with not only technology advances, but also your demands and expectations.

Anne Toth
VP Policy, Head of Privacy

Photo from kimberlyfaye

Today is International Data Privacy Day so it’s a good time to take a few minutes to think about how you protect your information online.

As a mother of three children and a Yahoo who works every day to help protect your privacy on our network, I’d like to offer some simple suggestions for exercising your privacy options:

• The Internet never forgets. Don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want your kids/future boss/mom/teacher to see today, next week or next year. Online content is easily distributed, and once it is “out there,” it’s difficult to ever pull it back completely. So think twice before you post content online and make sure you protect your online reputation.
• Be aware of your privacy options – and take control. Many companies now offer a variety of online privacy options to put you in control. You can opt-out of receiving marketing email from Yahoo! or opt-out of receiving interest-based advertising. Also, many browsers have privacy features that let you control your cookies and privacy settings.
• Stay educated. Cyberbullies, viruses, inappropriate content – the Web is wonderful but it has its warts. Do your homework regularly and read up on how to keep yourself and your kids safe online. For example, check out our recently revamped Yahoo! Safely site, featuring tips and videos for teens and a parents’ guide with regular blogs from some of the top online safety experts in the country.
• Choose your friends wisely. Social networking is a great way to share updates about what you are doing, good deals, and interesting stories. But make sure that you’re connecting with people you know. And take a look around the site to make sure you have carefully selected the privacy options that work best for you. For example, on your Yahoo! profile, you can make your profile private, viewable to your connections, or viewable to everyone. And on Messenger, you choose to be “invisible” to some people on your Friends list and not others.
• Share information with sites you trust. Read privacy policies (there should be a link on the front page!) and look for trust marks from certifying organizations like the Council of Better Business Bureaus or TRUSTe before you hand over personal or financial information to sites you don’t know.

Earning your trust is something we think about every day at Yahoo!, and we build that priority into our products and our policies. Yahoo! recently announced a significant change in how we retain the information related to your use of Yahoo! sites, setting an industry-leading approach to user data privacy. The New York Times said that it was “…an encouraging development for the cause of Internet privacy.”

We’ll continue to work for your privacy and hope you’ll take a moment today to learn how to better protect yourself and your family online.

Anne Toth
VP for Policy and Head of Privacy

At Yahoo!, data helps fuel the development of groundbreaking products for our users, partners and developers. We use all kinds of data for everything from powering innovative new products like Search Assist to showing you relevant news and information on our homepage to customizing advertising and content throughout Yahoo!’s network. We also analyze data to help fight the fraudsters that attack our systems.

Much of the data we use is information about our users’ online interests. The collection and use of that personal data demand that we take great care in managing and storing it. At Yahoo!, we feel a great responsibility to protect your privacy — we hold your trust sacred and work hard to earn it.

Today, we take another important step in our long record of privacy leadership. Last year, we committed to anonymizing the data we collect about your searches after 13 months. We are now reducing our retention time to 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security, and legal obligations. We’re also expanding our commitment to include data on page views, page clicks, ad views, and ad clicks.

What this means is that our content and advertising customization will remain cutting-edge and relevant to your interests — but the data we use to provide those services will only be kept for as long as we really need it.

How did we figure out “how long we really need it”? Led by my colleague Shane Wiley, the Insights Strategy Team worked with our business, product, and engineering teams around the globe to achieve the following goals:

• Meet the need for high quality consumer experience;
• Preserve the effectiveness of our advertising model and cutting-edge capabilities;
• Protect our users by fighting fraud and security threats; and
• Meet our legal obligations.

The result? We are setting a new industry benchmark by lowering the length of time we store non-anonymous data. Our new policy enables Yahoo! to continue providing the cutting-edge technologies and solutions advertisers and publishers expect while respecting your privacy.

Anne Toth
VP of Policy and Head of Privacy

You love to travel. You recently researched hotels in Thailand online. You see an ad that features the latest fare discounts from your airport to Bangkok. You’re not sure how that happened, but it’s pretty great serendipity. Now you’re booked in 37A and looking forward to tasting a proper panang curry.

That’s one scenario that demonstrates how valuable online advertising can be when it’s customized to your personal interests. It’s the kind of relevant advertising that saves you time and money – travel discounts, coupons, retailer sales, etc.

But we know that kind of customized advertising isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (or bowl of curry).

That’s why we’re introducing a new privacy choice, giving you greater choice in how you manage your privacy online by letting you opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com

We announced that new capability today in a letter to Congressman John Dingell (D – Mich.), the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that recently sent an inquiry to 33 companies about ad customization. You can read the full letter here. This new choice has been in the works for some time now, but we chose to move up our announcement so that we could share this information with Congress today.

It won’t take effect until the end of the month but you can opt out today by clicking on the “Privacy Policy” link at the bottom of virtually every page on the Yahoo.com network and look for the “Opt-Out” link in the sidebar.

Since most of Yahoo! is free, we know there’s not much preventing you from up and leaving us at any time. That’s why we work hard to earn your trust. And we think that comes with offering transparency and choice about the options available to you.

Anne Toth
Head of Privacy & VP – Policy