Yahoo Web Analytics - Let's Get Started

IndexTools was bought by Yahoo earlier this year and yesterday they rebranded themselves as Yahoo! Web Analytics.
Dennis Mortensen, Director of Data Insights at Yahoo, writes:

The re-branding also includes the launch of a new website and changes to the analytics product itself. It also includes a few enhancements to the tool, beyond making it scalable and compliant with the Yahoo! stack. From a user perspective, the first most noticeable fact is that we are moving to a single sign-on provided by Yahoo! and your account will be tied into your overall Yahoo! account.
As part of this announcement, we are also opening up further access to the tool and are now actively supporting:
• Yahoo! Store
• Yahoo! Developers (Y!OS)
• Yahoo! Head Advertisers (Microsites)
And for these, this is not just random access as in handing out 15000 logins, but well thought through integration with the platforms themselves. If you e.g. are a Yahoo! store owner you can enable enterprise-class web analytics by simply ticking a box and we then automatically inflate the correct tracking script variables at runtime. You are of course allowed to turn this off and take control yourself if needed. If you are a developer you will probably not even notice that it is us, as we fully instrument on the fly and create reports through the YWA API. All very exciting stuff I will elaborate on in future posts.
As you can read, this is not a free-for-all-come-and-get-it launch, but a carefully planned controlled access launch, which will keep all of our functionality in place and even enhance it. There is no dumbing down of the tool in any of the engagements above - and we will be working hard to add to the list of customers who can get access. So expect the above list to grow rapidly over the course of 2008. Anywho; The official PR message is:
Yahoo! Web Analytics will be released in stages to various business units and eco-system partners!

Some blog posts and articles (e.g. Yahoo Web Analytics claims faster updates than Google Analytics) are comparing Yahoo! Web Analytics to Google Analytics. In my opinion this tool is a lot better than Google Analytics and there is no real comparison between Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics. Yahoo! Web Analytics (IndexTools) compares more to the likes of Omniture SiteCatalyst, WebTrends Analytics etc. There are a lot of Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics customers who do not use (or need) the full functionality of these tools and Yahoo! Web Analytics tool could be great fit for these companies.

But how do you get Yahoo! Web Analytics?

ZeroDash1 (now Ascentium) is Yahoo! Web Analytics partner and can get you started on this tool. If you are interested in learning how we might save you thousands of dollar on web analytics tool email me at batraonline at gmail.com, make sure to put “Yahoo! Web Analytics” in your subject line.

(As I was writing this post I saw Eric Peterson’s blog post that you might want to check out Yahoo Web Analytics does not compete with Google Analytics)

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Free Y! IndexTools

As you might already know that IndexTools, a web analytics tools that claims to offer 80% of the functionality of omniture, was acquired by Yahoo in April. Within few days after the acquisition, Yahoo announced that it will be giving away the tool for free. 2 months went by but there were no sign of Free IndexTools.

Well, last week Yahoo announced that IndexTools is available for free but it is not freely available yet. At this time, all the new account activations will have to go through existing IndexTools partners. IndexTools is limiting new accounts to ensure they have proper infrastructure and capacity to handle new accounts.

In a letter to their partners, IndexTools wrote:

We here at IndexTools are now pleased to announce that the ‘Add New Account’ function has been reactivated on your partner account, but with some limitations.
Please bear in mind that our current server capacity was based on our original projections according to where IndexTools expected to be in 2008 in regards to volume and revenue. The acquisition by Yahoo! rendered this forecast obsolete. Our number one responsibility is to ensure that our existing partners and clients are not negatively impacted by an oversubscription of accounts on the IndexTools system. These limitations will be reviewed in the coming months.
So, what are these limitations?

• You will be limited to three projects per client account—should you require more than three please contact your account manager


• We are limiting the monthly page volume to 20 million page views/month for the immediate future (this limit is per client account); data collection will occur up to that 20 million page view mark, but not beyond


• You will be able to add 5 accounts within a 30-day period ( based on former invoicing period)


• Note: all new accounts will be created as Enterprise accounts from this day forward—furthermore, as there are no longer fees there is no longer any need for trial accounts

ZeroDash1 is a partner of IndexTools and that provided me an opportunity to get free accounts. I have implemented the code on one of my customer sites and will be sharing my thoughts about free Y! IndexTools in coming weeks.

Other post on this subject
It is official: IndexTools is now free for everyone!. He started his post by saying
Y! IndexTools - Add New Web Analytics Accounts Feature reactivated!


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Move over Google Analytics here comes Yahoo Analytics

I am sure a lot of you heard last week that Yahoo got into the analytics field with purchase of IndexTools. At that time it was not clear if Yahoo will continue selling IndexTools for a fee or will give away the tool for free like Google Analytics and Microsoft Analytics (Gatineau or what ever they are calling it these days).

I speculated, in my blog post, that Yahoo will (or should) give away this tool for free. In my mind the advantage of giving away this tool was clear. IndexTools is superior in functionality to Google Analytics, it is far more advanced and rivals tools like Omniture and Webtrends. A free offering from Yahoo would put them in the driving seat of the web analytics world. This free tool will also help them sway marketing dollars that would have otherwise gone to Google.

Another huge benefit that Yahoo will have is the ability to put their pixels (data collection mechanism) around the web and hence collect data. Which, in turn, will help their Behavioral Targeting efforts, which are currently limited to Yahoo portal only. This is huge!!! and something that might be of interest to both Bassel and Usama of the Strategic Data Solutions group of Yahoo (the group that IndexTools will roll into).

(Sidenote: Both Bassel and Usama were founders of digiMine, the company I used to work for, which rebranded to Revenue Science, one of the leading Behavioral Targeting networks. It could be there opportunity to build a huge Behavioral targeting network which could easily be bigger than Revenue Science.)

In my opinion giving the free tool was the way to go.

Well, this morning Dennis R. Mortensen, COO of IndexTools wrote on his blog that Yahoo will indeed offer IndexTools for free.
He also claims that IndexTools offers 80% of Omnitures functionality. So you get 80% of the functionality for Free.
I am sure executives at Omniture, WebTrends, Google Analytics, MS Analytics are scrambling right now to figure out what this all means to their business.
Let’s just say this for now – It will have an impact.

I also had some speculations about web analytics market consolidations in my last blog post. This move by Yahoo and IndexTools is a huge step toward making my speculations a reality.

Here is what I wrote in my previous blog post:

A free offering from Yahoo will change the Web Analytics landscape. If yahoo is smart they will make index tool available for free as soon as possible. I will replace GA with IndexTool in a heartbeat (as I don’t tie my Adwords to GA).

So what’s next?

Here are few scenarios

Scenario 1

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let’s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Now, Google won’t stand still. They will use their stock power to buy Omniture and replace Google Analytics with Omniture.


4. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won’t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 2

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Considering Microsoft’s intent to buy Yahoo, Google will spring into action and buy Webtrends and Omniture.


3. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


4. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won’t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 3:

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let’s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Oracle, which is on the sidelines but one Web analytics company recently, jumps into action and buys Omniture and makes it free.


4. Which will make Oracle the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third and Google the fourth.
   
5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to three Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

Some other combinations of the above are also possible. Also, there is a possibility of AOL and some agencies getting into the action but you get the idea that the consolidation will continue.


What do you think?

Web Analytics Industry - Consolidation Continues

Last month I wrote about ZeroDash1 and IndexTools getting into partnership. Few days later we (ZeroDash1) were acquired by Ascentium, a marketing an technology company based in Bellevue, WA.

Now IndexTool has been acquired by Yahoo.

"Yahoo! believes that the ability to generate the most valuable and relevant insights is essential to seizing market opportunities and creating successful campaigns," said Bassel Ojjeh "We expect that the IndexTools' technology platform will provide our customers the opportunity to more quickly uncover and act on these insights, enhancing Yahoo!'s status as a partner of choice in online marketing and the must buy for the world's advertisers."

I am not sure if IndexTools will continue to offer its tool for a fee (as it is today) or become a free webanalytics tool like Google Analytics. I think that Yahoo will take the route of Google Analytics and Microsoft Gatineau and make it a free tool. IndexTool is, however, a better tool in terms of functionality it offers compared to Google and Microsoft’s tool.

A free offering from Yahoo will change the Web Analytics landscape. If yahoo is smart they will make index tool available for free as soon as possible. I will replace GA with IndexTool in a heartbeat (as I don’t tie my Adwords to GA).

So what’s next?

Here are few scenarios

Scenario 1

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let’s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Now, Google won’t stand still. They will use their stock power to buy Omniture and replace Google Analytics with Omniture.


4. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won’t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 2

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Considering Microsoft’s intent to buy Yahoo, Google will spring into action and buy Webtrends and Omniture.


3. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


4. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won’t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 3:

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let’s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Oracle, which is on the sidelines but one Web analytics company recently, jumps into action and buys Omniture and makes it free.


4. Which will make Oracle the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third and Google the fourth.
   
5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to three Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

Some other combinations of the above are also possible. Also, there is a possibility of AOL and some agencies getting into the action but you get the idea that the consolidation will continue.

If any one of the above scenarios happen then Ian Thomas will be proven right, when he said in 5 years web analytics will be everywhere and all web analytics software will be free. I disagreed with Ian in my response to his prediction, but I also did not deny the possibility of web analytics vendor aggregating the user data across sites and then using that to provide targeted advertising and in return providing the tool for free.

What do you think? Comments?


Side Note: The interesting thing is that IndexTool will become part of Yahoo!'s Strategic Data Solutions. Bassel was one of the co-founders of my ex-company digiMine (which is now called Revenue Science).

Further Consolidation in Behavioral Targeting

Remember my 2007 prediction about consolidation in Behavioral Targeting space?

In July AOL bought Tacoda , earlier this year Google acquired double click, Microsoft acquire aQuantive and Yahoo acquired RightMedia. The latest is the purchase of BlueLithium by Yahoo. All these acquisitions bring three main things to these companies:

1. Display advertising capabilities


2. Reach (Number of user they can reach on the internet)


3. Behavioral Targeting capabilities

Unlike behavioral-targeting-only networks such as Tacoda and Revenue Science, BlueLithium leverages all major targeting capabilities to produce optimal results.
BlueLithium targets ads based on (source: BlueLithium.com):

• Behavioral targeting


• Demographic targeting


• Contextual targeting (choose from 16 content channels)


• Geotargeting


• Zip code


• Day part


• Operating system type

So far yahoo has been involved with Behavioral Targeting on their site. With this acquisition yahoo’s display advertising (and behavioral targeting) will extend beyond their own network.

This space is becoming interesting. Like I said earlier this month , It’s a Targeted Targeted Targeted World, you can run but you can’t hide. Behavioral targeting is also coming soon to the TV in your house. (Another company that uses BT is eBay, yes they also are engaged in Behavioral Targeting, you can read about it at Media Post’s Behavioral Insider

Want to talk more about Behavioral Targeting? Come to X Change conference organized by semphonic, I will be leading the huddle on Behavioral Targeting. Can’t make it to the conference but still would like to know how to engage in Behavioral Targeting? Contact me at batraonline at gmail.com.

It's a Targeted Targeted Targeted Targeted World

In a recent survey CNET asked AOL, Ask.com, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo about their privacy policies and behavioral targeting. In some cases they asked follow-up questions for clarification.

Here are the results



Source: http://news.com.com/How+search+engines+rate+on+privacy/2100-1029_3-6202068.html

So what did the Search engines say about Behavioral Targeting?

AOL was very open about using Behavioral Targeting. They have been using Revenue Science and recently purchased Revenue Science’s competitor Tacoda.

ASK said they do not use behavioral targeting. I have not paid much attention to ASK so I cannot comment if that is true or not.

ASK said they do not use behavioral targeting. I have not paid attention to ask so cannot comment if that is true or not.
Google said they do not use behavioral targeting. However as I showed you last month, they use same session targeting, I call it behavioral targeting. Their following answers were not clear to me

"CNET: Do you do behavioral targeting, meaning showing ads to users based on their behavior across multiple queries?
Grand: We are committed to protecting user privacy. We also want to provide users with a more rewarding online experience by making the advertising and content users see relevant to them. We believe the targeting capabilities, reporting and analytics we offer today provide advertisers with an excellent ROI and provide a high-quality user experience. Currently, our system incorporates a large number of signals (such as the user's query, the user's location, type of site, content, and the advertiser's landing page) when targeting and ranking ads. We have not focused on demographic targeting to date for targeting ads on search result pages."

Isn’t that what is called behavioral targeting? Demographic is one element and is not the main ingredient for Behavioral Targeting, Behavioral Targeting is based on behavior, demographic provides another criteria to segment the behavior by but is not required. Once again, do not confuse Behavioral Targeting with targeting based on Demographic information. Seems like Google is saying since we do not use Demograohic information we are not doing Behavioral Targeting.

"CNET: We weren't able to figure out your answer to our question asking whether you do behavioral targeting. In other words, if I search for "New York City vacation" in one query and "vacation hotels" in a second query a moment later, does Google.com evaluate the two responses, figure out that I'm probably looking for New York City hotels, and display ads appropriately?
Grand (Google): No.
Well, I showed some examples of it last month, check out my article titled "Ad Targeting on Google Search Engine".

MSN: Representative of MSN said that they offer Behavioral Targeting through AdCenter. He indicated that they will begin offering behavioral ad targeting on third-party sites. He also said that MSN uses some demographic data from services such as Hotmail and Windows Live for targeting but uses in non-identifiable fashion."

Yahoo, was very open about using behavioral targeting. According to yahoo
"Per our privacy policy, when a user is logged into a Yahoo product or service, they are not anonymous to us. Logged-in users may receive customized ads based on general demographic categories such as geo-location, gender, and/or age range."

What does this all mean?

Well, Behavioral Targeting has arrived, you will be targeted (and already are weather you know it or not). Yahoo, MSN and AOL are doing it. Google, even if they are denying it, is already targeting you. ASK will follow suite soon. "It's a Targeted Targeted Targeted Targeted World".

Yahoo Gets Smarter with SmartAds

NYTimes reports that Yahoo is about to announce a product called SmartAds that would allow marketrs to create custom ads on fly based on visitors interests based on their demographic and online behaviors or actions.
The articles says
“For example, a person who had recently searched for information about blenders might see an ad from Target that gives the prices for the blenders that are on the shelves in the store closest to that person’s home.
Last week I wrote a piece on targeting passions. In that post I wrote
“However the more granular you get with your segments the reach becomes a problem. Yes there will be quality but reach might not be enough to justify the cost and efforts of reaching these targets.” One of the biggest factors in the “cost and effort” was the cost and effort for creating different creative. Seems like Yahoo’s SmartAds will resolve this issue...pretty cool. We will have to wait and see how it works, if it really delivers on it promise than the marketers dream of 1:1 marketing is one step closer.

According to NYtimes, this is how Yahoo’s new system works: the advertiser (or its agency) would provide Yahoo with the components of its display ads — including the logos, tag lines and images. The retailer would share information from its inventory databases that track the items on the shelves in each of its stores. Next, Yahoo would combine that data with the information it has about its users’ demographics and actions online to create a product-specific advertisement.

According to the article: “For airlines, SmartAds uses Yahoo’s information about its Web surfers to create display advertisements for each person that feature ticket offers with actual prices listed. In time, Yahoo plans to offer rich media advertisements where users can buy the ticket at that price right within the ad unit, rather than having to click through to another Web site.”

Web Analysts, here is something to start thinking about - offsite transactions. User will never come to you site (your web analytics tools, omniture or webtrends won’t even see the visitor), any web analytics tracking embedded within Rich Media will possibly be Yahoo’s.

Dear Publishers, this will allow yahoo to build richer set of data, advertisers make sure you own that information and not used by yahoo to empower your competitors or against you e.g. raise the CMP or CPC for you because you have higher conversion. I don’t think that should be the case but there is always a possibility.

Side Note: According to Reuters “SmartAds will operate on Yahoo's network of Web sites as well as in its advertising partnerships with eBay Inc., major U.S. newspaper publishers and cable operator Comcast Corp.”. Not sure if eBay, major newspapers and Comcast are just the publishers of advertising or will actually be pooling in user behaviors. If these publishers also allow yahoo to create better understanding of users based on their behavior on their own site, yahoo will have even wider reach and better targets. Example: A user comes to ebay looks at some cars and then browses over to a newspaper site, without even clicking on a single link on the newspaper site, Yahoo (network owner) will know this is somebody who is interested in cars. By pooling in behaviors eBay will be able to generate extra revenue stream and the newspaper will have a better target and hence higher CPM.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cookies

Today there was an article on ZDNET blog about how Google/Doublelclick, Yahoo/RightMedia and Microsoft/aQuantive deals is about cookies more than anything else.

I agree with the author of this article that these acquisition are not about ad serving technology but about user data and reach. I have written in my past article about how these acquisitions by these three giants were a huge steps towards building behavioral targeting networks.

The rich set of user data that these companies will be able to gather by these acquisitions is very valuable. All of these companies had cash to hire smart people and build the ad serving technology for a fraction of what they paid for acquisitions. So it is not about technology. What they could not have done on their own was the reach and rich user data. The only way to gather that kind of information was to acquire the companies which have those.

So why do they need that user data? One of the issues with advertising is that by placing contextual ads advertisers waste lots of impression because they reach a lot of people who are not even interested in their offers or products. This rich user data (tied via cookie) will provide Google, Microsoft and Yahoo understanding of which users could potentially be interested in offers/products of an advertiser. Historical user data will allow them to understand what kind of users have responded to what kind of offers/products in past. The new acquisition will also allow them to reach all those user which were earlier not in their network plus provide them more data. This will allow them to target the ads to right set of users, users who are most likely to click on an ad and convert (buy, register etc.). By generating higher click-thorough and conversion they can command premium from advertisers. Everybody benefits from this, publishers can sell their inventory for a premium, advertisers will reach right set of customers and consumers will get the offers and products they care about. The three giant (Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) make money by providing this rich data and hence taking their cut from publishers (in many cases they will also act as publishers).

Some might argue that cookie deletion will cause a problem in aggregating the past user histories. I agree that cookie deletion is an issue but all these companies have some way for user to login or provide their real information (gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail, google checkout, toolbars, messengers etc.) which can help them tie all the cookies together. I will blog about this more in my future article.

Another issue raised by this article was privacy. I have written a lot about this in past, here is link to my past post which talks about this issue Behavioral Targeting: Audience Of One.

Behavioral Targeting will become a norm (it already is) and these three giants will own (already do) a significant portion of that user data that will make it possible.

Here are my other articles on Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral Targeting: Audience of One

This morning Washington past had an article titled “Web Ads with An Audience of One” discussing the growing use of Behavioral Targeting.

I have been writing about
Behavioral Targeting since I started this blog and have been predicting growth of behavioral targeting. MSFT/aQuantive deal did not come a s a surprise to me, I expected it. Behavioral Targeting is going to be very prevalent especially now when all three MSFT, Google and Yahoo have built their capabilities are building them.

This article resurfaces the privacy concerns, as I wrote in my article Google Doubleclick Deal concerns Privacy Advocates the best way to deal with privacy is to move from opt-out to opt-in model.

…."I believe that if consumers are provided proper education (I will write about consumer benefits in one of my future posts) than they can infect benefit from Behavioral Targeting. It will be a win-win situation for all the parties involved. Proper education and disclosures by advertisers, publishers and networks will ease the concerns regarding Behavioral Targeting. Consumers have the right to opt out of Behavioral Targeting but what is lacking is proper education on how to do so. The networks currently opt-in users by default; however, in my opinion the proper process should be opt-out by default and opt-in if user chooses to opt-in, just like we do for emails and newsletters. This process will move the burden from users to the advertisers, publishers and networks.

In short run this could result in a lower reach for BT providers. But if the benefits to consumers are properly stated then most of the consumers will be willing to participate. If you (network or advertiser) tell a consumer that he/she does not need to go looking for deals or offers of products/services that he/she is in the market for, these deals/offers will be provided to him/her based on her online behavior no matter where in the network she is in, I think consumer will love it. If a consumer knows the process and she knows that she is willingly participating in the BT, the click-through rate on the ads will be higher too. Why force users into Behavioral Targeting and raise privacy concerns when you can offer them what they want (when they want) and make them your raving fans.

This article gives an example from DrivePM where a user who visits a hotel chain site but does not complete the booking can be reached at later point in time but this time the user gets a 10% off coupon as an incentive to complete the booking. Knowing the benefit won’t users allow networks to track them? I am sure those who see the value in this 10% will surely do. As I said above give users what they want and they will give you what you want. If users know that they can have offers tailored to their needs by just letting a network track them, chances are very good that users will let them do it. Users sign up for grocery card rewards program just to get few cents off then how is it different online? Let users decide what and how they want you to track.

One another note: I am puzzled by the quote from Curt Viebranz of Tacoda “…….. we’re literally collecting 10 Billion behaviors a day”. In my article titled Calculating Behaviors on your Site I questioned a similar quote from Revenue Science. Can somebody from Tacoda or Revenue Science please clarify how you calculate behaviors or quit using such meaningless stats.

Behavioral Targeting Moves by Yahoo and Google

A recent article by Brandweek, talks about how Yahoo is betting big on Behavioral Targeting.
Yahoo has been testing its BT like targeting since 2003 or so. I am from India but has been living in US for years, I signed up for my yahoo account in US. Sometime around 2003 when I logged out of my yahoo email, yahoo served me an ad related to an Indian company. I don’t remember explicitly telling yahoo that I was from India. I asked my co-worker (sitting next to me and who was not of Indian origin) to browse to the same location but she did not get the same ad. My thinking at that time was that that they were somehow reading the content of my emails (just like gmail), since I didn’t remember using yahoo search engine to find that content related to India, but I am not 100% sure though) and serving ads based on it.

According to this Brandweek article, critics say behavioral targeting is an invasion of privacy. Jeffrey Chester, CDD founder and executive director said he has no problem with behavioral targeting if advertisers disclose to consumers that they are tracking information. "They need to fully disclose and get permission, but they're afraid to do it," Chester said. I am not a critic of BT but I agree with Chester as I wrote in my posting on Google and Doubleclick privacy concerns.
Yahoo! rep Dina Freeman said the company protects its users' privacy. "It's anonymous. It's never tied to your name," she said. "Consumers in general are coming around to the fact that they like the relevancy."

I agree with the above statement but let’s disclose this to consumers so that everybody can feel comfortable.

Google on the other hand has been saying that it won't consider behavioral targeting. Even though Google is resisting Behavioral Targeting so far but a lot of people (including me) are predicting that Google will soon get into Behavioral Targeting. According to Brandweek article, however, now Google is saying they won’t consider behavioral targeting without getting consumers' approval. So they are thinking about it too if they get consumer approval. Richard Holden, director of product management at Google says "We're not opposed to it in principle, if it means showing fewer ads but ones that are more relevant." Yes, Behavioral Targeting is about showing relevant ads, so when can we expect first BT Targeted ads on Google network?