I saw an article on Business Insider with a link to a page within your Google account where you can see what information Google believes it knows about you based on your browsing habits.
Topics they monitor include things like news preferences, topics of interest, and demographics. Based on this information the company collects, they can then show advertising to you they believe will be relevant (I believe it’s on websites that have Adsense enabled). You can opt out of this if you’d like, and I chose to opt out via Chrome plugin.
You might find this interesting if you use Adsense on your websites. By disabling this cookie, you can see what ads would be displayed to the average user who visits your website. For instance, on DogPark.com, the ads now seem more related to dog parks and even dog walking than previously, when I would see web hosting and other technology links.
It’s interesting to see what Google thinks it knows about you, and you can either edit or remove those insights, or you can prevent Google from using the cookie.
Those web hosting and other ads you’d see are likely re-targeting you via cookies (Liquidweb does this to the extreme)
“You can opt out of this if you’d like, and I chose to opt out via Chrome plugin.”
What is the name of the plugin?
@ Patrick
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hhnjdplhmcnkiecampfdgfjilccfpfoe?hl=en-US
How can I trust Google if they so grossly overshot my age range?! Work on your inferring skills, then we’ll talk.
Assuming they don’t have cameras on me (conspiracy theory!)…,does that mean google thinks I’m mature for my age, or boring for my age?!
Wow, scary stuff! I didn’t imagine it was this detailed.
Thanks Elliot. How do you change this in adsense?
@ BFitz
You don’t change the Adsense, but it gives you an idea of what an average visitors might see without your cookies getting in the way.
A bit creepy… but I guess the all-knowing social network of the world is kind of the way things are going.