[…] It used to be that the only way to prevent Google from using your data for targeted ads was turning off personalized ads across your whole account, or disabling specific kinds of data using a couple of settings, including Web & App Activity and YouTube History. Those two settings control whether Google collects certain details about what you do on its platform (you can see some of that data here). Turning off the controls meant Google wouldn’t use the data for ads, but it disabled some of the most useful features on services such as Maps, Search, and Google Assistant.
Thanks to a new set of controls, that’s no longer true. You can now leave Web & App Activity and YouTube History on, but drill into to adjust more specific settings to tell Google you don’t want the related data used for targeted ads.
The detail is tucked into an announcement about the rollout of a new hub for Google’s advertising settings called My Ad Center. “You can decide what types of your Google activity are used to show you ads, without impacting your experience with the utility of the product,” Jerry Dischler, vice president of ads at Google, wrote in a blog post.
That’s a major step in the direction of what experts call “usable privacy,” or data protection that’s easy to manage without breaking other parts of the internet.
[…]
You’ll find the new controls in My Ad Center, which starts rolling out to users this week. It primarily serves as a hub for Google’s existing ad controls, but you’ll find some expanded options, new tools, and a number of other updates.
When you open My Ad Center, you’ll be able to fine tune whether you see ads related to certain subjects or advertisers. […] You’ll also be able to view ads and advertisers that you’ve seen recently, and see all the ads that specific advertisers have run over the last thirty days.
Google also includes a way to toggle off ads on sensitive subjects such as alcohol, parenting, and weight loss. Unlike similar settings on Facebook and Instagram, though, you can’t tell Google you don’t want to see ads about politics.
Source: Google’s Privacy Settings Finally Won’t Break It’s Apps Anymore
So you probably need to spend quite some time configuring this – we will see, but most importantly you are now directly telling Google what you do and don’t like (and what you don’t like tells them about what you do like) without them having to feed your search behaviour through an algorithm and making them guess at how to best /– mind control –/ sell ads to you
Robin Edgar
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