Google today announced the launch of behavioral target advertising on the Google content network. The advertising, that Google calls “interest-based”, will show ads based on categories of interest of the user determined by the “types of sites you visit and the pages you view.” Google says that a limited number of advertisers will be offered the chance to use “interest-based” advertising as part of a beta, and that the offering will be expanded later in 2009.
To deal with privacy concerns Google touts the fact that most ads it provides include a label that includes links to “get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads”. Google has created a tool called the Ads Preferences Manager that allows users to view, delete, or add interest categories associated with the advertising cookie in their web browsers. They also allow users the option to opt-out of the advertising cookie and have provide a plug-in to insure that the opt-out cookie is no deleted when a user clears out the cookies in their web browser.