Yahoo Scout, Search and Shopping Services
This page describes our current privacy practices for Yahoo Scout, Yahoo Search ("Yahoo Scout and Search Services"), and Yahoo Shopping. All information that is collected, provided to Yahoo, or stored in your Yahoo Account will be treated, used, and protected in accordance with the Yahoo Privacy Policy . As we revise our services by adding or removing features or using different service providers, these practices may change. Some features are only available to registered users. For any questions about these services, please visit Help .
Yahoo Scout
Yahoo Scout is an AI-powered search, answer, and discovery service that helps users explore and understand information by synthesizing content from Yahoo properties, licensed content partners, and the broader web. When you use Yahoo Scout, you are interacting with an automated system powered by artificial intelligence.
Yahoo Scout may be available in various ways:
- Yahoo Scout answers engine:A standalone Yahoo Scout search and answers experience that you access either directly or from within existing Yahoo properties and apps. Today this means Yahoo Scout that you can find at scout.yahoo.com or the Yahoo Search mobile app.
- Yahoo Scout Intelligence Platform features:Yahoo Scout-powered features that appear within other Yahoo products or features (for example, within Yahoo Finance or Yahoo Sports).
Unless a product-specific notice says otherwise, the practices described below apply to both Yahoo Scout answers engine and the Yahoo Scout Intelligence Platform. Where the experience differs, those differences are described in the “Yahoo Scout Surfaces and History Controls” section.
Information Collection & Use Practices
When you use Yahoo Scout, Yahoo processes information related to your use of the service, including:
- Queries and Interaction Context:The questions, prompts, and related context you provide to Yahoo Scout in text form during a Yahoo Scout session.
- Voice and Image Interactions:Where you use voice or image features of Yahoo Scout, the audio of your voice session (including transcripts of what you say and what Scout says back) and any images you share with Scout or that your device camera captures during a Yahoo Scout session.
- Session and Technical Information:Information such as your IP address, device type, browser information, and session identifiers that are necessary to operate, secure, and deliver Yahoo Scout. For voice sessions, technical information includes audio-streaming and device microphone state.
- Retrieved Information:Content selected from Yahoo properties, licensed data and grounding sources, and third-party websites to generate responses.
- User Feedback:Feedback you may choose to provide, including ratings or free-text feedback, which may be used to evaluate quality and improve the service.
- Personalization Data:Where enabled by your settings, Yahoo may use your prior Scout interactions and, where permitted, other Yahoo activity signals to personalize tiles or suggestions within Scout. If your relevant personalization setting is off, Yahoo will not use other Yahoo product data to personalize Scout content going forward. Suggestions generated before you turned the setting off may continue to appear until you clear your activity in the specific Scout experience.
Yahoo Scout and your Dashboard & Controls
Yahoo also offers controls for Yahoo Search/Scout history personalization with your Privacy Dashboard & Controls . Changes you make there do not automatically clear or change what appears in your Yahoo Scout experience.
Yahoo Scout Surfaces and History Controls
Yahoo Scout may appear in various Yahoo products and experiences over time. For example, it may appear as the standalone Yahoo Scout answer engine or as Yahoo Scout-powered features within other Yahoo offerings.
- Interaction history within a specific experience:In some Yahoo products, for logged in users, Yahoo Scout activity may be stored and shown within the particular Yahoo Scout experience where it occurred so that you can review or continue prior activity.
- Clearing history in a specific experience:When available, you can use in‑product controls to clear your recent Yahoo Scout activity from that specific experience. Clearing activity in one Yahoo Scout experience may not automatically remove activity shown in another Yahoo Scout experience.
- Backend retention:Even if you clear visible history from a particular Yahoo Scout experience, Yahoo may keep limited records for a period of time for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, auditing, and service integrity purposes, consistent with the Yahoo Privacy Policy.
As we add new Yahoo Scout capabilities or experiences, we may introduce additional controls or new ways of using Yahoo Scout interaction data. If that happens, we will update this page or provide product‑specific notices so you can understand your choices.
AI Processing and Model Providers
Yahoo Scout uses artificial intelligence models operated by Yahoo and by third-party service providers acting on Yahoo’s instructions to process queries and generate responses. Where providers may process Personal Data solely to provide the service to Yahoo, they are contractually restricted from using that Personal Data for their own purposes, including model training. Answers generated by Yahoo Scout can be wrong, out of date, or incomplete; you should not rely on them as professional advice. Yahoo Scout is not used to make decisions that produce a legal effect or significantly affect you in any way.
Advertising
Advertising displayed in connection with Yahoo Scout is selected and delivered through Yahoo’s advertising partners based on the use context and applicable privacy settings.
Safety and Content Limitations
To promote user safety and comply with legal and policy requirements, Yahoo Scout may limit, redirect, or provide warnings in response to certain categories of high-risk queries, including queries involving self-harm or illegal activity.
Children and Minors
Yahoo Scout is intended for adult users. Where Yahoo has identified a user as a minor, advertising is not personalized in connection with Scout, and additional safeguards may apply consistent with Yahoo’s broader privacy practices.
Yahoo Search
Information Collection & Use Practices
- Search: When you conduct a search on a product or service that uses our search technology, we collect information from your experience, such as your search queries.
- Search Assist: This feature helps you find what you are looking for by automatically suggesting popular search terms and new topics based on aggregated searches and your individual search history.
- Search History: The Yahoo Search History tool allows you to see your past Search activities. Learn how to manage your Yahoo Search history .
- Privacy Results: When signed in, you may see relevant, private results from other sources, such as your Yahoo Mail. Only you can see these results. Learn how to manage, including turning off, Private Results .
- Customized Advertising: Some advertising you receive on Yahoo may be customized based on your searches, or related terms at Yahoo. Please visit your Dashboard & Controls to manage and learn more about the information used to personalize your Yahoo experience.
- Image Recognition: Yahoo Search uses image recognition algorithms to identify public figures, scenes, actions, or objects to make it easier to search images.
Search Partners
- Third-Party Involvement: Various third parties help provide search, and search advertising results for Yahoo. More than one search or search partner may be used simultaneously and may change based on factors such as type of online experience, type of device used, and the country the search is performed from. Search advertising includes paid search and contextual search results.
- Search Widgets: Search partners may also provide search widgets and features to make your search experience better, such as easy access to information about concert tickets or nearby airline flights.
- Information Sharing: We may share your search query, IP address, and other pseudonymous information from your web browser or app, such as a unique identifier for your web browser, with these search partners. They may use this information, as well as your search results clicks, to provide more relevant advertising and search results, for search product improvement, research and analysis, and to help detect and defend against fraudulent activity on sponsored or contextual search results.
- Reformatted Results: We may reformat results provided by these search partners for an enhanced search experience.
Sponsored Search Results
- Paid Placement: Search results may include sites that have paid for placement. Learn more .
- Tracking URLs: Search results may contain tracking URLs provided by Yahoo Search Marketing and/or our search partners to identify clicks from the search results page.
European Residents
- URL Dereferencing: Users who are European residents can request that certain URLs be dereferenced against a Yahoo Search for their name in certain circumstances in Yahoo Search domains across EEA/UK.
Yahoo Shopping
Yahoo Shopping allows access to thousands of merchants and products in one place. You do not need to be a registered user to make purchases.
Information Collection and Use Practices
- Purchases: When making a purchase, the merchant will ask for your personal information. Each merchant receives your personal and order information directly. Yahoo Shopping does not see, collect, store, or use this information. Each merchant is solely responsible for their use of your information.
- PriceGrabber : PriceGrabber powers Yahoo Shopping. For more information on how PriceGrabber collects and uses your information, please visit the PriceGrabber Privacy Policy .
Comments
- Posting Comments: Users logged in to the Yahoo Network can comment. Your profile is linked to your comments, and your display name and profile photo are visible to other users.
- Deleting Comments: You can delete a comment you have posted by selecting the 'delete' option next to the comment you wish to remove.
- Viewing Your Comments: Your comments are visible to you on the "My Comments" tab next to the commenting streams.
Last updated June, 2026
