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Google To Monitor Surfing Habits For Ad-Serving

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the do-you-see-what-i-see dept.

superglaze (ZDNet UK) writes "Google is gearing up to launch cookie-based 'interest-based' advertising, which involves monitoring the user's passage across various WebSense partner sites. The idea is to have better-targeted advertising, which is not a million miles away from what Phorm is trying to do — the difference, it seems at first glance, is that Google is being relatively up-front about its intentions."

4 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe not so bad. by AltGrendel · · Score: 5, Informative

    By visiting Google's ad-preferences page, the user can opt out of having their surfing habits tracked, or input their own preferences for the subject matter of ads they would like to see.

    At least you can opt-out.

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  2. Re:evil? by Darundal · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can tell amazon not to use an item you have already purchased to suggest other items.

  3. Google != Phorm by Dynamoo · · Score: 4, Informative
    There are several key differences between Google and Phorm. Google will use a cookie-based system to track you as you visit sites with the relevant Google Ads. Phorm take the data directly out of your clickstream.

    You can easily opt-out or block Google ads. You cannot do this with Phorm as it will still monitor your clickstream regardless of whether you have opted out or not.

    Google is a per-user based system. Because you are tracked by cookie, it will serve ads based on YOUR cookie ID only (or maybe your Google account, whatever). Phorm tracks by IP address, so if you share an IP address via NAT (most people do) then it cannot easily distinguish between users. This leads to the possibility that inappropriate ads may be served up (porn, pharma etc).

    In any case, what Google is suggesting is not new and basically has been around in one way or another since the dawn of internet advertising. What Phorm is trying to do *is* new and is almost the same as monitoring systems such as the sort of thing ECHELON does (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON).

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  4. Re:I thought they'd been doing this for years by avdp · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is. In fact, Google owns Doubleclick, which I am sure is no coincidence.

    http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080311_doubleclick.html