Google Beta Tests Behavioral Advertising
Google has a new advertising scheme in place that is agitating privacy advocates. Its new behavioral advertising system will track your Internet activity in order to come up with ads that are better suited for you. It says that it won’t be storing any personal information to the cookie. As expected, this sort of tracking is already sounding alarms to those concerned about privacy. Here’s an idea of how it will work:
This means that, instead of visiting a music site and simply getting music-related ads, you might visit a music site and getting ads for the newest “Cats Meowing Christmas Carols” album—because Google knows you spend 95 percent of your Internet time at Catster.
It’s already under beta, implemented on partner site and YouTube. Users can choose to turn off the feature under ads preferences and also by installing a browser plug-in. What the critics don’t like is that it’s on by default and has to be disabled instead of the other way around. While it’s under beta and not fully implemented yet, it might be a good idea to observe just what sort of ads will be displayed.
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