You may now limit advertising regarding pregnancy and weight loss on Google.
According to Google, it wants to give you more control over the advertisements you view. You can ask the corporation to stop displaying you ads about pregnancy and parenting, dating, or weight loss starting today.
Google has come under fire for targeting people with family or body-related adverts they don't want to view. Google makes money in part by showing you ads based on your search history and other online activities. Facebook has options for filtering ads concerning certain sensitive themes, but Google users have had few options until recently. Google began allowing consumers in the United States to opt out of adverts on YouTube that promote alcohol or gambling in December 2020. People all throughout the world can now opt out of ads related to alcohol and gambling, as well as ads in the newly revealed categories, in Google's ad ecosystem.
Karin Hennessy, Google's group product manager for advertisements privacy, said, "We perform user surveys and attempt to understand what types of categories they are interested in us adding." "Alcohol and gambling were mentioned at the very top, so we delivered those." Parenting, pregnancy, dating, and weight loss were the following four categories. It's all based on what we consider to be sensitive categories, but it's also heavily influenced by user feedback."
Hennessy noted that pregnancy, parenthood, dating, and weight loss aren't the only areas where Google users have shown a need for more control. She said the company plans to add more categories in the future, but first has to undertake research and "upgrade the back-end technology." She didn't go into depth about the research's emphasis or the results of the user survey.
These settings are most likely not limiting the amount of data Google obtains from users, but rather the types of advertising that appear. Some sorts of targeted adverts are already prohibited by Google's regulations. For example, the firm claims that it prohibits marketers from targeting people based on health issues, such as mental health, yet it does allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise in the United States, according to its advertising regulations.
Some commercials are difficult to categories and go through the cracks, according to Hennessy. For example, someone who bans ads promoting alcohol may nevertheless see an airline ad with a flight attendant holding a glass of champagne. That's why the company claims the controls help you see "fewer" rather than "none" ads you don't want to see.
The new limits, according to Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, are a cynical ploy by Google to boost its reputation surrounding targeted advertising just as US lawmakers push to regulate Big Tech.
On the one hand, Chester thinks it's great that Google appears to care about what its people want. However, he believes that targeted behavioral advertising should be opt-in rather than opt-out, and that the controls will most likely serve Google's financial interests in the end. Google has always prioritized transparency and control, according to Hennessy.
"This is about protecting Google's position in politics and in Washington," Chester explained, "and falsely encouraging people to volunteer more information about themselves so that Google can target them even more aggressively on products and services they're likely to be more interested in."
Go to myaccount.google.com to opt out of ad categories. From the left-hand menu, select "Data & Privacy," then "Ad settings" and seek for "Sensitive ad categories." Check out our guide to Google's privacy settings for more information on how to minimize your data sharing with the company.