Ad Serving

Advertising is a core part of Yahoo’s business. Many of our free brands, websites, apps, advertising services, products, services or technologies (“Services”) are supported by the ads we and others display. We also provide a variety of online advertising services to other companies that want to place ads on our Services or elsewhere.  

Yahoo displays ads both on our owned and operated Services and on non-Yahoo sites, apps, and services. Yahoo serves display ads, also known as graphical ads, which appear as images, animation, or video. Yahoo also serves text ads that appear as text links. Yahoo’s advertising platforms provide the means for advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad networks to manage their advertising business.

Ad Selection

When you visit Yahoo Services, sites and apps or non-Yahoo sites and apps where Yahoo may serve ads, ads that you see may be suggested by Yahoo based on various factors such as the content of the site or app on which they appear, information you provide such as your gender, age or location, searches you conduct, what your friends or contacts recommend to you, apps on the device, or based on your other interests. Yahoo may use information you provide, including personally identifiable information, to tailor ads when you use our sites and apps or one of our services. Yahoo may also analyze your use of our products and services and your engagement with the ads we show you.

  • Ads served by Yahoo may be customized to reflect your interests. To do this, Yahoo may consider browsing activity, including the type of content accessed, ads clicked, and searches conducted or on related terms. Yahoo may also use information about the ads you have seen and clicked on to improve the effectiveness of our advertising platforms.
  • When showing you ads on a search results page, information about your browsing behavior and your search query may be used to display more relevant ads. For more information about how your search queries may be used to display more relevant ads, visit the Search privacy page.
  • Yahoo’s systems analyze all communications content to match and serve targeted advertising.
  • Yahoo may display ads based on relevant content. For instance, if you are viewing a Yahoo news article about a recently released album, Yahoo may show you an ad for a music store that sells albums. Similarly, ads in Yahoo Finance may be related to financial services.
  • Yahoo may also tailor ads based on location. For more information about how Yahoo uses location information, please visit our Location privacy page.
  • Yahoo may use information you provide, such as your gender, age or job category, to tailor ads when you are logged in or if you have stored this information with a Yahoo service. Yahoo may also use this information, including personally identifiable information, to tailor ads when you are using our sites and apps or one of our services.
  • Yahoo may tailor ads to you based on people you have connected with and their demonstrated or declared interests.
  • Yahoo does not provide any personally identifiable information to an advertiser, site, or app when you interact with or view a targeted ad. However, by interacting with or viewing an ad you should be aware that the advertiser may make the assumption that you meet the targeting criteria used to display the ad.

Technologies Used

  • Yahoo uses tools called cookies and web beacons in the ad serving process. Click each link to learn more.

Transparency, Choice and Opt-out

You can control Yahoo’s use of information for ad selection. Yahoo offers you the following choices with regard to interest-based advertising:

  • Please visit Ad Interest Manager to learn more about the information used to personalize your ad experience and your choices regarding how we use information about these activities to influence the ads we show you. If you opt-out, you will continue to see ads Yahoo serves, but they won’t be customized to your interests or search history.
  • You can see and, in many cases, opt-out of receiving targeted ads from other companies that serve ads on Yahoo by visiting our Third Parties page.
  • You can edit your account information, that may be used to select ads, at any time.

Ads are more effective when they are shown to people who are likely to be interested in the product or service advertised. For this reason, we use the information we collect and receive to help us select which ads to show you.  

We may select these ads based on the content of the page or app on which they appear. For instance, if you are viewing a news article about a recently released album, Yahoo may show you an ad for a music store that sells albums. Similarly, ads in finance content may be related to financial services. These kinds of ads are sometimes called “contextual ads.”  

Other ads we select may be based on information we have collected or received about activities and interests on websites and apps used on your device and other associated devices. These ads are sometimes called “interest-based ads.” Some interest-based ads are based only on an isolated online activity, such as if you were to go to an online bookstore and view a particular novel. The bookseller might want to show you an ad for that novel because you’re probably more interested in buying it than the average online user. This kind of interest-based advertising is sometimes called “retargeting” or “remarketing.”   

Other interest-based ads are shown based on your online activities over time and across different websites and apps used on your various devices. We may collect information about your online activities in this way in order to make predictions about what products or services might be of interest to you. Based on these predictions, we and other companies may categorize you as belonging to a “segment” of users to which advertisers may be interested in showing ads. For example, if you’ve recently visited a car dealer’s website, you might be grouped in an “Auto Intenders” segment, and a car dealer who places ads with us might want us to show ads to the users who are in this segment. You can view a list of certain categories for advertising. Please note the listed categories do not include custom categories, such as those created by a specific advertiser.

We also select ads to show you based on other information you provide or that we collect from other sources, such as your gender, age or location, searches you conduct, or what your friends or contacts recommend to you, apps on the device, or based on your other interests. 

Data Use To Provide More Relevant Advertising

As explained above, we use the data we collect or receive about you to help us show ads for products or services that you are likely to be interested in and make the advertising we serve more effective.  

Yahoo may use information you provide or that it receives, including  information that on its own could reasonably identify you, to tailor ads when you use our Services or the services of others. Yahoo may also analyze your use of our Services, including your engagement with the ads we show you, to improve the effectiveness of our advertising platforms, limit the number of times you see the same ad, and measure the effectiveness of the specific ads we serve.

  • When showing you ads on a search results page, information about your browsing behavior and your search query may be used to display more relevant ads. For more information about how your search queries may be used to display more relevant ads, visit the Search privacy page.
  • Yahoo’s automated systems may analyze all content (including email and messenger communications) to match and serve targeted advertising.
  • Yahoo may tailor ads based on location. For more information about how Yahoo uses location information, please visit our Yahoo Location privacy page.
  • Yahoo may use information you provide, such as your age or gender, to tailor ads when you are logged in or if you have stored this information with an Yahoo Service (even if you are logged out). Yahoo may also use this information, including personally identifiable information, to tailor ads when you are using our Services.
  • Yahoo uses a variety of tools, including, but not limited to, IP Addresses, web beacons, SDKs, cookies, and similar technologies, to support Yahoo advertising services. Click each link to learn more.
  • Yahoo may tailor ads to you based on people you have connected with and their demonstrated or declared interests.
  • Yahoo may personalize ads to you based upon activities of accounts and devices associated with you.
  • We use data that we receive from other sources to help us provide more effective advertising. For example, we may use data that is available from public or commercial sources and combine it with other data we have collected or received about a user or the user’s device for these purposes.  
  • We do not use, or allow others to use, sensitive financial account number data or other sensitive data (as defined by the self-regulatory programs listed below) to determine eligibility for health insurance, life insurance, or employment.

More Information

Your Choices

Learn more about your choices.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

If you have questions, suggestions, or complaints, please complete a feedback form or you can contact us at:

Yahoo
Customer Care - Privacy Policy Issues
770 Broadway,
New York, NY 10003, USA