Google Moves to Interest-based Advertising

During our interview with Mike Saxon SVP, Brand and Communications TNS Online TV, Mike explained how many online advertisers are becoming much more interested in personalized preferences of potential customers by using interest based advertising.

Recently, Google, embraced interest based advertising.

If you are currently use Google Adsense, you may have received the below notice via email:

"We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team"

Certainly, this change will cause privacy concerns for many internet users. But, as with most net offerings, one may decide whether or not to participate.

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Contact staff writer JC Lamkin at 215-843-1039 or jclamkinpmp@gmail.com