Yahoo on Thursday announced that it will roll out a "do not track" solution across its products by early summer.

Yahoo said the offering will "provide a simple step for consumers to express their ad targeting preferences to Yahoo."

Websites like Yahoo have the ability to offer up more relevant ads based on your Web activity. If you search for a lot of recipes, for example, ads for cooking classes might be of more interest than ads for men's clothing. But some lawmakers and privacy advocates are concerned about just how much data Internet companies have about you, so these "do not track" options offer Web users to ability to opt out of having their activity tracked.

Yahoo will offer "do not track" via a header solution that the company said has been in the works since last year.

The announcement comes several days after the Federal Trade Commission issued its final report on privacy, which urged Congress to enact general privacy legislation even as it recommended that companies build in simpler and more transparent privacy options for consumers, like "do not track."

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz discussed the topic today during the latest in a series of House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearings on consumer privacy. Leibowitz pushed for five key "do not track" principles: universal implementation; ease of use; no option to override; no technical loopholes; and the ability to opt out of not just targeted ads but all behavioral data tracking.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Bono Mack said she is "still not certain legislation is necessary, still skeptical of the motives of both industry and government, and still leery that advancements like 'Do Not Track' and 'eraser button' technology will work as intended."

The White House is also pushing a "privacy bill of rights" plan, which includes a call for browser makers to adopt an easy-to-use "do not track" option. The FTC in 2010 called on browser makers to develop a "do not track" option that would let people opt-out of all tracking. Companies like Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla came up with their own solutions to address this, but the White House plan, spearheaded by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), is intended to develop a more streamlined approach.

Google and Mozilla have voiced their support for the White House plan. As PCMag software analyst Michael Muchmore found out, the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser - IE9 - currently has the strongest option of the major browsers.

For more, see The State of "Do Not Track" in Current Browsers.