There has been more and more reports of advertisers getting their AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing accounts hijacked. One way of this happening is by submitting your username and password on a site that looks like it is run by Yahoo or Google but in reality, is not run by Google or Yahoo. In order to help prevent these phishing attempts from fooling you, Yahoo has decided to implement the option of using a "Sign in Seal" feature on their YSM portal login.
Here is a screen capture of what it looks like to set up such a seal:
Now, all this really does it place a cookie on your computer. When Yahoo sees that you are asking the login page, Yahoo will display your custom sign in seal. How? Well, they look to make sure the cookie is on your computer and if it is and if you are on a Yahoo site, it will show the seal that you picked. If you delete your cookie or access the Yahoo login page from a different computer, you won't see the sign-in seal.
The feedback on this Yahoo announcement is mixed.
We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch. Frank Watson says since Yahoo is adding a cookie, "then you have a cookie that will track all activity of that computer if you wanted." But Yahoo already places tons of cookies on your browser that tracks you anyway ;-). Mel complained that it didn't work right for him:
Also, after setting up my sign-in seal on YSM yesterday, I had to reset my password FOUR TIMES before I could log in to my account. What a waste of time. Might have been a fluke, but I couldn't help but figure it was related to the sign-in seal.
Many advertisers are upset that this feature is only available in the US market. But others are pleased that Yahoo has added this new optional security feature.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch.
