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Yahoo! Gets More Social

By Adrian Rush – Updated Oct 4, 2017 at 10:29AM

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The online hub is going to share your online habits with your contacts, unless you specify otherwise.

Is Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) about to pull a Facebook?

If you're one of the company's 280 million email account holders, you may have received a notice asking you to check your privacy settings. Yahoo! is getting ready to roll out a social feature that will share your online proclivities with people in your address book. Don't want Aunt Jane to know about the midget mud wrestling pictures you posted on Flickr? You can opt out of the new feature, but you have to click a button to make it happen.

By notifying users ahead of the change and offering a clear way to decline participating, Yahoo! is trying to avoid recent missteps by the likes of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), whose Buzz application revealed users' email contacts, and Facebook, whose privacy settings have recently come under fire.

Will this move make you more or less likely to use Yahoo! services? Sound off in the comments box below.

Fool online editor Adrian Rush redirects his Gmail spam to his Yahoo! Account and doesn't own any shares mentioned above. Google is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers recommendation. The Fool's disclosure policy recently unfriended everybody on Facebook and stormed off in a huff.

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