Google has unveiled a new way to deliver AdSense Ads which is being labeled as “behaviorally targeted ads“. This works by Google installing a cookie on the surfer’s computer and then tracks the websites visited. When that user lands on a page that delivers AdSense ads the user will be more likely to see targeted ads geared to what their cookie’s data holds.
Google does a great job of monetizing the data they intake and this is definitely Google taking monetization to the next level. I do see how this could raise eyebrows on the privacy factor and I agree, I don’t like being tracked by cookies. I also don’t like the thought of people getting an idea of what I am looking at by seeing what ads appear on my machine.
Google hopes to pre-empt this concern by offering their users the ability to control what kind of ads they see but it also is more of a broad approach at this time. “To provide greater privacy protections to users, we will not serve interest-based ads based on sensitive interest categories,” said Nicole Wong, one of Google’s legal representatives.
“For example, we don’t have health status interest categories or interest categories designed for children.”
Users can modify their ad preferences through the ad preferences manager.
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Hi,
We’re writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site’s privacy policies. You’ll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.
Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.
As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site’s privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we’re unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.
For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.
We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team