Google Launches Interesting Ad Changes

Yesterday Google announced a beta program launching “interest-based” advertising. The new program will use additional information based on the type of sites users visit and the pages they view to display more relevant ads based on categories of interest. This is consistent with the movement of advertising networks to offer additional services through enhanced advertising features to remain competitive in this challenging market. Yahoo recently added enhanced features offering publishers more control over targeted ads.

Of course this type of advertising sparks debate and concern regarding privacy policies as additional user information is required to provide this type of display control. In an effort to head off negative perception Google has been up front about their changes and is attempting to present features aimed at offering users options. Although this program will adopt an opt-out approach rather than opt-in, meaning users are automatically participating unless they take specific action to have themselves removed from the feature altogether.

Google describes three features that will provide, as they describe, transparency, choice and control. They are providing a new tool called Ads Preferences Manager that will enable users to select additional interests or delete categories based on their own preferences. This may go a long way with the generation that expresses interest in actually receiving ads tailored to their specific needs. They will also display more details about the information being used to serve a specific ad, which will be available by clicking ad labels. In addition, they have created a browser plug-in that will permanently maintain the opt-out selection even if cookies are cleared.

While behavioral targeted advertising has been around for quite some time, it remains a controversial topic. Serving relevant content will always be a challenge. If the new interest based ad serving feature proves well with consumers, it will only contribute to Google’s domination of search.