Google introduces “interest-based” advertising
Yesterday Google introduced their new “interest-based” advertising system. Basically these ads will associate categories of interest — could be sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. Then Google ad system uses these interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.
Of course questions about user choice and privacy arise, when a system like this is presented. Google try to answer these questions by launching their interest-based advertising with three important features:
- Transparency – We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google’s ad serving.
- Choice – We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
- Control – You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn’t deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.
Don’t know if this is just another way of saying behavioural targeting but you can read more about the new system over at Google
