At the risk of duplicating, the opt out procedure at Yahoo has terminated for those who opted some time ago.

Gari

Full article at http://antivirus.about.com/od/spywareandadware/a/yahoobugs.htm

Yahoo's current privacy policy is causing consternation among some users who object to their use of so-called 'web beacons'. Known in most circles as web bugs, these invisible images are embedded in websites and email and used to track your surfing - and even tell whether you've opened a particular email. According to Yahoo's current privacy policy, "Yahoo!'s practice is to include web beacons in HTML-formatted email messages that Yahoo!, or its agents, sends in order to determine which email messages were opened and to note whether a message was acted upon." (For more on the hazards of HTML email and the practice of using web bugs, see: Why Plain is Better)

.......Read on at above URL.........

The direct opt-out link is http://pclick.yahoo.com/p?optout.

You can also access the opt-out link by accessing the Yahoo privacy policy at http://privacy.yahoo.com, scrolling to the section on cookies, and clicking the link titled 'web beacons'. From the web beacons page, scroll midway down the page to the third paragraph under 'Outside the Yahoo! Network'. The link to opt-out is contained in that paragraph.

This is not the first time Yahoo's marketing tactics have come under fire. In April 2002, Yahoo automatically signed their users up for spam, junk mail, and telemarketing. To counter it, Yahoo users had to login to their account and opt-out of the arrangement. (For more on this, see Wired News: Yahoo's 'Opt-Out' Angers Users)

Update: Since the original article was written (May 2005), Yahoo has changed the location of their Web beacon opt out page. The new page requires that you allow a cookie from Yahoo, which is counter-intuitive to what most folks consider opting out. If you are using Firefox with the NoScript addon (advisable for security purposes), you can more easily block Yahoo web beacons by doing the following:

1. Open the Firefox browser and select Tools | Options
2. In the Privacy section, under Private Data, make sure "Always clear my private data when I close Firefox" is selected and then select Settings
3. the Clear Private Data selection will open. Make sure each of the options has been selected (each should have a checkmark) and then click OK.
4. Click the Clear Now button to remove all stored cookies, web beacons, etc.

The NoScript addon in Firefox will prevent scripts from Yahoo and any other site unless you specifically allow them. And any cookies/beacons that are downloaded when you access a site will be deleted when you close Firefox.

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The reaction and information directly from Yahoo can be found at their Privacy page at http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html

You can OPT OUT at http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/opt_out/targeting/details.html

be careful not to hit the OPT IN button that appears on the next page

Suggest, close brower and open a new Browser page then go to
TOOLS >
DELETE BROWSING HISTORY >
then

1. DELETE COOKIES  (as it happens quite fast)

2. DELETE FILES which deletes Temporary Files and might take a min or two if you didn't do it recently. 

I perform this procedure about 6 times per day to keep my computer running at a decent speed

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