When you’re Googling your next query, don’t be surprised if you feel like somebody’s watching you. And it’s not because the stack of money with the googly-eyes in the Geico commercials is lurking around. It’s because Google Inc. has embarked on a plan to serve up ads based on your interests, which it determines by observing your online activity.
Google’s new “interest-based” approach will target online ads to users based on reading a person’s Web browsing history, following activity in its cloud apps and observing users’ surfing habits on its network of partner Web sites and YouTube – all over a period of time.
It says it will give users access to their profiles that Google builds, as a privacy protection, but privacy advocates are already concerned nonetheless. The Electronic Privacy Information Center used the word "disaster" and has asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to intervene.
Google has always tracked user behavior: It’s been serving ads based on single-site activity – the search terms entered, or the keywords in the body of a Gmail missive, for instance. While this might be slightly creepy to some, there was no ongoing collection of data to build a general profile of a user.
The debate over such tracking – which echoes similar policies at Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp.’s search businesses – is sure to continue. Google for its part has painted the idea as a win-win: It noted that the additional granular information will provide better ROI for advertisers and presumably, more revenue for itself. Meanwhile, users will be alerted to information they might actually find useful.
The program is only in a test phase for now.
