IT Brief Asia - Technology news for CIOs & IT decision-makers
Story image
Gain more control over your ad experience on Google with My Ad Center
Thu, 27th Oct 2022
FYI, this story is more than a year old

My Ad Center is in the process of rolling out to users around the world.

It is designed to help users control the kinds of ads seen across Google on Search, YouTube and Discover. Users will be able to block sensitive ads and learn more about the information used to personalise the user’s ad experience.  

“My Ad Center was designed to give you more control over your ad experience on Google’s sites and apps. When you’re signed into Google, you can access My Ad Center directly from ads on Search, YouTube and Discover, and choose to see more of the brands and topics you like and less of the ones you don’t. You will never have to spend time searching for the right control or decoding how your information is used. Instead, you can manage your ad preferences without interrupting what you’re doing online,” says Jerry Dischler, Vice President, General Manager, Ads.  

“Imagine you spent months researching your latest beach trip, and now that you’re back, you don’t want to see vacation ads. With My Ad Center, you can just tap on the three-dot menu next to a vacation ad and choose to see less of those types of ads. You can also choose to see ads about things that you care about, like deals for sneakers or holiday gifts for your loved ones.”

My Ad Center allows you to turn off ads personalisation while making this control easy to find.

If you choose not to see personalised ads, you’ll still see ads, but you may find them less relevant or useful. 

This will apply anywhere you’re signed in with your Google Account.

There may also be specific ad topics you don’t want to engage with; in My Ad Center, you can choose to limit ads related to topics such as alcohol, dating, weight loss, gambling, pregnancy and parenting.

“We follow a set of core privacy principles that guide what information we do and don’t collect. We never sell your personal information to anyone, and we never use the content you store in apps like Gmail, Photos and Drive for ads purposes. And we never use sensitive information to personalise ads — like health, race, religion or sexual orientation. It’s simply off limits,” says Dischler.

Users can decide what types of activity are used to make Google products work for you. 

Independent of the ads you’re shown. In the past, if your YouTube History was on, it automatically informed how your ads were personalised. Now, if you don’t want your YouTube History to be used for ads personalisation, you can turn it off in My Ad Center, without impacting relevant recommendations in your feed.

“It’s our responsibility to strengthen the ways we keep you in control of your ad experiences, while ensuring that every day, people are safer with Google,” says Dischler.