We know that online ads follow us everywhere on the internet. You just type anything in your search engine tab or visit any website, and the online advertisers will start popping up the relevant ads to everywhere you go on the internet, be it your social media, your email inbox or anything else. It is the same for Google Adsense ads too. This is technically termed as behavioral advertising or interest-based advertising. Google shows you the ads as per your interests and behavior on the internet. For example, if you like a Facebook page of a particular brand, Google will keep showing you the advertisements for that brand everywhere.
Stop Google Ads from following you on the Internet
Two types of Google ads follow you on the internet, one when you are logged into your Google account and the other when you are not logged in. Both of these two advertisements are based on your internet browsing, surfing, and searching. You will see the ads for products and services you have once searched for. Google is so smart that it will display the ads according to your age group, your gender as well as your location – and it makes use of Cookies for this purpose.
When you are logged into you Google account
It is actually very easy to stop Google from following you around the internet and showing you the ads. Just visit adssettings.google.com while you are logged into your Google account and uncheck the box saying “Also use Google Account activity and information to personalize ads on these websites and apps and store that data in your Google Account”.
Once you uncheck this box, Google will stop linking your browsing data and websites with their advertising partner apps and will thus stop showing the ads based on your internet activity and your interest. However, it may take some to time to reflect the change in your settings.
When you are logged out of your Google account
When you are logged out of your Google account, visit www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/anonymous and uncheck the two boxes saying,
- Ads Personalization Across the Web
- Ads Personalization on Google Search.
Once unchecked Google will stop showing you the ads when you are on YouTube or on your Google Search page. However, you will still see the ads, but they will be less relevant.
With these setting tweaks, you can turn Google ad personalization on or off. These settings are saved to your Google Account (if you’re signed in), or to your browser (if you’re not signed in).
Apart from these settings, you can also use the Google Chrome plugin to opt out of the personalized ads.
IBA Opt-Out Google Chrome Plugin
This plugin for Google Chrome lets you opt-out of Google’s interest-based ads on its partnering websites. You just need to install the plugin once, and it will let you opt-out of the DoubleClick advertising cookie which is used by Google to serve you the internet-based ads. Download the plugin here.
