Google to Offer Ads Based on Interests

[Skippy McGee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/technology/internet/11google.htm

Google will use a cookie, a small piece of text that resides inside a Web browser, to track users as they visit one of the hundreds of thousands of sites that show ads through its AdSense program. Google will assign those users to categories based on the content of the pages they visit. For example, a user may be pegged as a potential car buyer, sports enthusiast or expectant mother.

 

[Grindstone]

Great, bring on the pr0n ads.

 

[marcel]

The hypocrisy...

Just the other day they were saying to not sell links within content. Now they are tagging users and targeting them. It's the same thing.

 

[greatusa]

But aren't they doing this already within their network? They are just putting transparency I think . .

 

[bullet-ride]

That shit's gonna cause some more privacy concerns.

 

[marcel]

That shit's gonna cause some more privacy concerns.

And guess who is going to win when consumers decide to reset their cookies everyday ?

 

[RealMedia]

And guess who is going to win when consumers decide to reset their cookies everyday ?

Some people already do lol Opera browser does it on close by changing settings, not sure about FF.

 

[marcel]

Wait until FF users do it in a major way

Some people already do lol Opera browser does it on close by changing settings, not sure about FF.

 

[HarveyJ]

It's funny, Chrome has a very easily found option to dump cookies on exit... except that the browser itself reports back what you're doing, so it's not like Google needs their tracking cookie in the first place if they're getting people onto it.

IE8 finally has some easier to find and implement privacy features, but I think most people that are still using IE are probably too dumb to realise how to use them.

I like letting FF clear them, and other temp files, for me every time I start it.