Search engines
Yahoo Search privacy rating
Yahoo's web search engine. Searches are collected with cookie, device and account identifiers, shared with search partners, and used to personalize results and ads.
Summary
Yahoo Search scores 32 out of 100 (grade F) on the search engines criteria. It meets 3 of 11 criteria: transparency report, tells users about requests and TLS configuration. It partly meets security headers, no profile-based ads and no account needed. It does not meet open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, independent audit and no search history logs. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+ and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade B+.
Score 32 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
- No
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No
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
Search queries, IP addresses and browser identifiers are collected and may be shared with search partners, and this cannot be turned off.
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No
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Funded by advertising, including interest-based ads.
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No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
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Yes
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
Yahoo publishes counts of government data requests by country and how it responded, in half-yearly reports.
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Yes
Tells users about requests Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
Yahoo's policy is to notify users about third-party requests for their data before disclosure, except where prohibited by law.
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No
No search history logs Weight 3 of 3
Are searches stored without IP addresses or other identifiers?
Search queries are collected with IP addresses and browser identifiers, and search history is kept for signed-in users.
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Partial
No profile-based ads Weight 2 of 3
Are ads (if any) based only on the current search, not a profile?
Interest-based ads use activity and searches by default, and users can opt out in Yahoo's privacy controls.
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Partial
No account needed Weight 1 of 3
Can every feature be used without an account?
Search works without an account; some features are only available to registered users.
Automated tests
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Yes
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A+
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Partial
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade B+ (80/100+)
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Not tested yet
Modern web standards Weight 1 of 3
Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?
Not tested yet.