Back in May during its I/O event, Google announced what it called My Ad Center. The basic idea of this feature is that it gives you a little bit more control over what ads you see. The company is now rolling out the feature to users around the world. And at the same time, the internet search giant is sharing more on the ways users can make use of this.
For the average user, Google says that you can access My Ad Center and most of its features directly from ads you see on Search, Discover and YouTube. From the example that the company provides, if you see an ad about traveling and would like to see less of it, all you have to do is hit the tree-dot menu, then choose to see less of these kinds of ads. If you’re so inclined, you can even find out more about the company that paid to show you certain ads.
Of course, should you choose to do so to really fine tune the kinds of ads you see, the option is available as well. You can choose to limit ads based on general “topics” as the company categorises them. This would be especially pertinent for more sensitive topics, like alcohol, dating, weight loss, pregnancy and parenting. There’s no turning them off entirely though.
In a similar vein, you can choose to turn off tracking of your activities in determining what kinds of personalised ads you see. With the rollout of My Ad Center, you can make it so that your YouTube History does not affect the ads shown to you. Turning this off will not affect your video recommendations, so you can do so with no worries if you choose to. You can also turn off personalised ads completely, meaning you’ll get random ads that may or may not be relevant to you.
All this will apply when you’re signed into Google, be it on a browser, or the entirely of an Android device. Naturally, the company also takes this opportunity to reiterate that it doesn’t sell your personal information, or use them for ad personalisation.
