With My advertising preferences, Google offers a personalization tool to select the advertisements displayed on the web, and even to hide content on sensitive topics. A way to better target ads…
Essential financial sources for Web players – including CCM –, advertisements can very quickly become a real nuisance for Internet users! Invasive, intrusive, annoying, repetitive… We could do without it! But even if it means having to endure them, you might as well be able to choose them, this will avoid having the same ad on a loop for weeks on each YouTube video – even though you have purchased the product. Google, the world number one in digital advertising, has understood this and has been gradually launching since October 20 a new function called My advertising preferences, which should give its users more control over the content of the ads displayed during of navigation. “Online advertisements should not be a source of confusion or frustration for Internet users“, recognized Jerry Dischler, the vice-president in charge of advertising, in a press release. They will therefore be able to “choose” the ads they see – or hide them – on YouTube, on the search engine or on Discover, directly via their Google account or the dedicated application.
My advertising preferences: towards “qualitative” ads
The My Advertising Preferences app consists of three pages, accessible via the sidebar at the bottom of the screen. On the first, My ads, we find the ads recently seen during navigation in the form of maps, and for which we will be able to indicate if we want more or less advertising on this theme. The second page allows you to deactivate or not the personalization of advertisements and to choose the criteria via three tabs. We can thus indicate the themes and the name of the brands that interest us, but also specify the “sensitive” subjects that we want to avoid seeing – alcohol, gambling, meetings, weight loss, pregnancy and parenthood. Finally, the third page deals with confidentiality and allows you to choose which personal data can be taken into account for the choice of ads – such as age, gender, marital status and profession for example – and modify them if necessary.
My advertising preferences is also accessible directly via the Google account without having to interrupt its navigation – which is more practical and saves time. Simply press the three small vertical dots next to an ad to open a menu and indicate the relevance of the ad, and limit or not the appearance of an equivalent. Another small novelty: it is now possible to deactivate YouTube history without having to modify the advertising recommendations on the platform. Finally, the new tool allows you to see the ads that a company-verified advertiser may have shown in the last 30 days. “Imagine you see an ad for a coat you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand. With this page, you can learn more about this advertiser before visiting their site or making a purchase. “, explains Google. A function that was previously limited to the United States and is now available to everyone. This new addition, while giving users a little more control over the management of their personal data, will mostly benefit Google, with advertising bringing in tens of billions of dollars each year – $210 billion in 2021 for Google-owner Alphabet, according to Statistics. By allowing its users to personalize ads, the Internet giant will be able to offer more relevant ads… on which they will be more likely to stay or click, thus generating revenue. Business is business….
