Setting Privacy for Your Yahoo Email

You likely know that you need to set privacy for sites like Facebook and Twitter, but you may not realize that you should also check the settings for your email accounts too. Many of us have had our email accounts forever, way before the web became so very social. However, now that our email accounts are also social, it is important that you check their privacy settings to see what information they are displaying or accessing.

When I checked the privacy for my account, I was surprised to find that Yahoo was publicly displaying my full name, birth date and address information. This was likely information that I had entered years and years ago when I signed up for the account because I would certainly not choose to post that information publicly today. I also realized that Yahoo was tracking my browsing and posting advertisements to my email window based on what I had been searching..

If you have a Yahoo account and would like to make it more private, follow the steps below to access the Yahoo Privacy settings.

1. Locate the Help menu at the top right of your Yahoo Window.
2. Select Legal then click on Privacy Policy.



3. Locate and click on the Preferences button at the top of the page.
4. Follow the links to edit your settings for My Account, Opt Out of Ad Matching and My Profile.

Take some time to go through each section to make sure you select the level of privacy you are comfortable with. You may also want to check any other accounts you have to make sure they have not automatically opted you into information sharing features.

For more tips on staying safe while online, visit our Internet Safety tutorial.