Yahoo! How-To: Disable Yahoo!'s Spyware "Super Cookie"

If you have a free Yahoo! account, whether for Yahoo! Instant Messenger or for Yahoo! Mail or for any of the other services Yahoo! provides, you are being watched. I learned this from an article by James Derk. Basically, Yahoo! keeps track of the websites you visit with it's "super cookie" under the enigmatic "web beacons." Here's how Yahoo! describes it:

Information recorded through these web beacons is used to report aggregate information about Yahoo! users to our partners. This aggregate information may include demographic and usage information. No personally identifiable information about you is shared with partners from this research.

Yes, Yahoo! may know that you are a porn hound.

The following is how to disable it.

1. Log in to your Yahoo! account.
2. Go to http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy.
3. Scroll down to the "Cookies" section.
4. Click on the web beacons link.
5. Scroll down to the "Outside the Yahoo! Network" section.
6. Click on the click here link.
7. DO NOT click on the "Cancel Opt-out" button. Yahoo!'s trying to be tricky here by having you opt back in without thinking about it. Just close the window.