A special type of Google ad is the “interest based” ad. You are able to set your preferences to guide which types of interest based ads are displayed to you.
Watch this video, then visit google.com/ads/preferences to set your ad preferences.
If you think interest based ads is kind-of creepy, we’d love your comments.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post Dave, I didn’t expect this one… kind of reminds me of the way Amazon’s home page is automatically plastered with junk I’m tempted blow all my money on.
I don’t understand how they can claim that your viewing history isn’t collecting “personal information” without permission. I wonder how Google determines what visits are to sensitive pages. Some poorly-designed sites actually put personal data in the URL as a result of GET method forms. I wonder how long it’ll take before I start to see ads now with my name in them.
I’ve opt’ed out.
Nice insightful response, Ryan. I’m with you on this. I’d say that Google is being very literal about them not collecting any info by virtue of the ad itself. However, if there is any interaction on that page, then I’m confident they’ll have that information. This goes back to Google’s purchase of Double-Click who was already regarding as having enormous datasets of consumer preferences and a fantastic network of web publishers. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/technology/14DoubleClick.html
I do believe in targeted advertising, but I don’t believe for a second that Google doesn’t know my interests. I’ve balked at their tracking toolbar for ages until recently caving in for the SideWiki feature.