I stumbled upon an interesting article about Google’s online advertising policies. For those who don’t know, Google makes a significant portion of its revenue on search engine optimization (SEO) advertising. Basically, if you pay the company a certain sum, you can guarantee that your company’s link will be featured prominently in the search results, usually as a sponsored link. All of the major search engines do this; Google just does it better, as it does just about everything better when it comes to search.
Peter Sayers of IDG News wrote a piece on March 11 saying that Google plans to further refine its advertisements based not only on the searches its users make but also on the websites that they visit on a daily basis. Users will also have the options to further define their interests and thus the ads that they see when using Google:
http://www.csoonline.com/article/483944/Google_will_let_people_choose_how_its_ads_target_them
Of course there are privacy concerns. The article points out that Google must abide by a U.S. Federal Trade Commission guideline published in 2007 that requires that websites provide a clear notice if using behavioral advertising and allowing consumers to opt-out. Thus the user-customization aspect of the new Google effort.
The company is also trying to ward off criticism by saying that it won’t collect data for certain categories such as health status, which would clearly overstep privacy bounderies.
Google says that it will offer a browser plug-in that will allow for a permanent cookie that will opt-out the would-be surfer. However, I have a better idea:
* Delete your cache and cookies weekly if not more.
* Don’t use Google while signed in with a gmail web address.
It’s a constant battle to be able to surf the web in peace …
Filed under: New media
