Yahoo to store detailed user activity data
In a press conference held last week, Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz has announced that effective immediately, Yahoo will start storing all user activity data, starting with search history.
New Yahoo toolbar
The new policy comes just after last month’s launch of the Yahoo Stalker toolbar, which integrates deeply into all web browsers on the computer, gathering data about all user activity. According to Yahoo, the Stalker toolbar improves user’s web experience by automatically redirecting to more interesting sites when boring sites are visited, and replacing annoying ads with more entertaining ones. Yahoo claims the toolbar is very popular, with over 15 million downloads already.
Blushing Bartz
"Just trust me. God knows I need this data."
The Stalker toolbar and Yahoo’s new retention policy has attracted quite some attention from privacy watchdogs. When asked to motivate the new policy, Miss Bartz said that “it is mostly to improve the user experience, and for fraud and security purposes”. She seemed to withold important details, with a sudden blush on her face; so we asked her after the press conference what it is really about.
Strong personal drive to collect data
“Ah, all that babble about the user experience and stuff is just big bullshit”, she told us. “No, you gotta see the big picture. My problem is, I just can’t get a date; I never know what to talk about. So, to solve that, I got all my neighbors to use Yahoo and the new Stalker toolbar – especially my hot bachelor neighbor Jim. And that cute married guy from across the street too. And that horny beast from the coffeeshop on the corner of course. God, he is just yummy. Anyway, now Yahoo will collect everything they’re doing for me and I’ll know exactly what they are into! Isn’t it brilliant?”
