March 14, 2009

AdSense Privacy 2 - Google PopUp?


Related to AdSense Privacy? - Need New Ad Provider. I dug a bit more, and found the FAQ page for DoubleClick - the provider responsible for the new Google AdSense tracking cookies, and apparently also for 1 x 1 pixel image "tracking beacons". But are they really saying, essentially that Google AdSense may include popups?

This is from the DoubleClick FAQ (emphasis mine throughout):

"DoubleClick provides its ad-serving clients with a means of choosing and reporting on ads. It is the website owners or the advertisers with whom they contract that make the decisions about the format of the ads. The advertisers choose whether they want to have banner ads or pop ups delivered, and they use our technology to make it happen. The website owners and advertisers choose the size and frequency of pop-up ads. DoubleClick has no control over which ad format website publishers or their advertisers choose.

Generally, there are a couple of different ways that you might receive pop up advertising:
  • 1. The site you are currently visiting has sold an advertising opportunity to a marketer and that marketer has chosen to create an advertisement that opens a new browser window. This is a form of “traditional” Internet advertising.

  • 2. You have some kind of ad-delivery software installed (intentionally or unintentionally, knowingly or unknowingly) on your computer. This type of software often comes bundled with freeware such as P2P (Peer-to-Peer) music sharing applications. It may track the sites you visit and scan their contents looking for triggers that match criteria identified by advertisers that purchased space from the software manufacturer. The software program will then display advertisements on your monitor."

...Ok, so AdSense will be: tracking users across all sites using a 'perma-cookie'; targeting ads based on what the user saw before your site, not what is on your site; requires you as the publisher to maintain a compliant privacy policy; and there could be popups in there too;

Where do I sign? Check is in the mail (for $1.73), right?

Fortunately, many others have realized the necessity to act. People have created ad-free search and a universal ad tracking opt-out tool that make the web feel just a little cleaner.


1 comment:

  1. thanks for the opt-out link, I feel a lot more secure now that I don't have Big Brother over my shoulder - the only problem is what if that site is owned by Google, and now Google has placed me on a watch-list so It will monitor everything I do?

    ReplyDelete

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