London (ECN) - As time goes by the way that we shop and live our lives as a result of the internet is rapidly changing. Recent evidence of this change is the seismic shift that Google made regarding its Google Ads Network. Not long ago, the company announced that it will be showing you ads based on the web sites that you visit (also known as behavioral marketing). The way it works is Google will take the cookies information from your computer (this basically says what web sites that you have visited over a specified period of time) minus any personal information to determine which ads you should be seen based on the web sites that you have visited.
Many proponents claim that this is an effective way to see the ads that are of most interest to you. While many privacy advocates and other organizations are claiming that the company is becoming too large and is collecting to much personal information on people that is unnecessary. As Nicole Wong, deputy general counsel for Google recently wrote, “To provide greater privacy protections to users, we will not serve interest-based ads based on sensitive interest categories. For example, we don’t have health status interest categories or interest categories designed for children.” This is the latest move by Google following Yahoo who announced on February 24th that they will be offering behavioral based advertising to their and advertisers and that they could easily cleanse all old user data on their system with in 90 days. This means that every 90 days your user data will be continually changing.
What this is showing is that in spite some of the major privacy concerns Google will be moving forward with its behavioral based ad marketing. Part of this is an effort not to let rival Yahoo take a foothold in this market and to be able to adapt to the changing conditions for internet advertising. Unless there is some major action Washington or there is a huge public outcry do not be surprised to see more of this type of marketing as we continue to move into the future.
