David Bridges
Google’s looking to give users more control over the ads they see in its apps, and the information that they share for such, with the launch of its new ‘My Ads Center’ tool, which will provide more direct control options direct from ad listings.
As you can see in this example, My Ad Center will soon replace Google’s ‘Ad Settings’ and ‘About this Ad’ elements, and will facilitate more control over the various ad and data options available to you.
As explained by Google:
“Imagine you spent months researching your latest beach trip, and now that you’re back, you don’t want to see vacation ads. With My Ad Center, you can just tap on the three-dot menu next to a vacation ad and choose to see less of those types of ads. You can also choose to see ads about things that you care about, like deals for sneakers or holiday gifts for your loved ones.”
Not sure how many people are going to choose to see more ads, but the broader point here is that you’re going to see the same amount of ads anyway, so you may as well make them more relevant to your interests.
In addition to controlling which ads you do/don’t want to see, you’ll also be able to turn off ads personalization completely.
“My Ad Center makes this control easy to find by putting it front-and-center in the product. If you choose not to see personalized ads, you’ll still see ads, but you may find them less relevant or useful. This will apply anywhere you’re signed in with your Google Account.”
Again, you can’t reduce the amount of ads you’ll see, but you can dictate why you see them, putting more control in your hands.
You’ll also be able to limit ads in certain topic categories, like alcohol, dating and weight loss, in addition to indicating your interests.
Finally, My Ads Center will also enable you to choose the specific types of data that Google can or can’t use in targeting you with ads.
“In the past, if your YouTube History was on, it automatically informed how your ads were personalized. Now, if you don’t want your YouTube History to be used for ads personalization, you can turn it off in My Ad Center, without impacting relevant recommendations in your feed.”
It’s a good update on the data privacy front, providing more capacity for people to control their online experience, and limit the information that they share, if they so choose. It could also have an impact on advertisers – though, going on past releases of this kind (like Facebook’s ad controls), only a small percentage of people will actually go to the trouble of enacting these ad rules.
But you’ll have the option, if you want it. So if you’re seeing a lot of irrelevant ads on Google and YouTube, now, you’ll be able to switch it up and get rid of those that you are not interested in.
My Ad Center is rolling out to all users from today – you can read more about My Ad Center here.
Mason Thompson
Clara Hastings
