Google is pre-empting a clampdown on behavioural advertising by launching a browser extension for Google Chrome that enables users to opt-out of tracking cookies from online advertising networks.
The launch follows criticism – by both the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission – about the rise of behavioural ads, and calls for new legislation to force companies to provide an opt-out button. Microsoft has already said it will add Tracking Protection in the next version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, while Mozilla is also planning to add a “do-not-track” feature to browsers for Firefox users.
Dubbed “Keep My Opt-Outs”, the new Chrome extension handles opt-outs for ad networks that are part of the industry’s self-regulation programme for online behavioral advertising. At the moment, Google is offering an opt-out extension only for Chrome, but the company is believed to be working on extensions for other browsers as well.
In March 2009, Google unveiled a new behavioral advertising set-up that it billed as “interest-based advertising”. On YouTube and across sites using its AdSense ad network, the company began showing showing ads to surfers based on the pages they had visited in the past. “We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the websites people visit,” Google vice president Susan Wojcicki said at the time.
When it announced the programme, Google also offered various tools to enable opt-out, and these included opt-out browser extensions for Firefox and Internet Explorer. The new extension is designed to work across third-party ad networks as well, and to maintain opt-outs even if users regularly clear their cookies.
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