We make protecting privacy a priority by being clear about what information we collect and how we will use the information to show relevant ads. We also make it easy for you to view, manage, and opt out of personalized ads on a variety of services ranging from Google properties like search, third party AdSense sites, and Google applications or clients. Of course, we will not sell or share with third parties your personally identifying information from ad serving cookies without your consent.
We serve ads through our AdWords program on our own websites, as well as on the Google Display Network. We also serve ads through our AdSense and AdMob programs on third-party partner sites and services (such as applications and other clients). We use a variety of methods to deliver ads that are relevant.
For the Google Display Network and AdMob network, we serve ads based on the content of sites you’ve viewed or the application you’re using on your device and may also use other partner data to target ads. For example, if you visit a gardening site, ads on that site may be related to gardening. In addition, we may serve ads based on your interests. As you browse Google sites or websites that have partnered with us or use and download applications on your device, Google may place cookies or anonymous identifiers (see more on anonymous identifiers below) in your browser or on your device to understand the types of pages visited, content that you viewed or applications on your mobile device. Based on this information and/or anonymized partner data, Google associates your cookies or anonymous identifiers with relevant interest categories and uses these categories to show interest-based ads. For example, if you frequently visit travel websites, Google may show more ads related to travel. Or, if you download a golf application, Google may show you ads related to golf. Google may also show you ads related to the content of sites in your recent browsing history. Google can also use the types of pages that you have visited, content that you have viewed, or applications on your device to infer demographics like your gender and age category. For example, if the sites that you visit and applications you download have a majority of female visitors (based on aggregated survey data on site visitation or application usage), we may associate your cookies and anonymous identifiers with the female demographic category.
In addition to ads based on interest categories, Google allows advertisers (including Google) to show you ads based on your previous interactions online or in applications, such as visits to advertisers’ websites or applications. For example, someone who visited the website or shopping application of an online sporting goods store can later receive ads about special offers from that store.
Google will not associate sensitive interest categories with your cookies or anonymous identifiers (such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation, health, or sensitive financial categories), and will not use such categories when showing you interest-based ads.
When you search for something on Google without being signed in to your Google Account, the search results page shows results and ads that match your current search terms and location. If we think that the ads will be more relevant, we may also use recent searches for related topics and ads that you’ve clicked to decide which ads to show.
When you are signed in to your Google Account, we may use additional information to decide which ads to show. For example, we may use a recent previous search if we think the searches may be related, like a search for “New York” followed by a search for “hotels” – this can indicate that you want to find out about hotels in New York. We only use recent searches because it usually doesn’t make sense to draw connections between searches that are very far apart in time.
Another way we can personalize ads on search is by using your Google Web History. For example, if you recently clicked a search result for a surfing website, and then searched for “vacations,” this can indicate that you’re interested in vacation destinations where you can surf, and you may see ads for surfing vacations.
Additionally, we may use information that you tell us about yourself to personalize ads on search. For instance, certain products may give you the opportunity to tell us that you really like a particular retailer or brand and we can use that information later to show you ads for merchants and products & services that we think you might like.
In Gmail, most of the ads we show appear next to an open email message and match the contents of your email. When we personalize ads, we display ads based on the contents of all your emails. For example, if you’ve recently received lots of messages about photography or cameras, we might show you a deal from a local camera store.
Not all ads are personalized to you on Google search, Gmail, and other Google properties. We personalize ads only when we think the additional information improves the ad selection for you.
Using the DoubleClick cookie, YouTube also displays interest-based advertising to show relevant ads on its site. The interest categories are determined by your visits to websites that use our AdSense program, as well as by the videos you search for, prefer to watch, or actions you take (such as uploading) on YouTube. The DoubleClick cookie associates your browser with relevant interest categories and uses these categories to show interest-based ads. We do not combine personally identifiable information from your YouTube account or Google account with the cookie data used to serve interest-based advertising without your consent. To learn more, see YouTube Advertising and You.
Interest and demographic categories are based on visits to sites in the Google Display Network or other services or applications you use or download. Using the Ads Preferences Manager for browsers, you can edit your ads preferences in browsers by adding interest categories that are relevant to you. Using the Ads Preferences Manager for browsers and Ads Preferences Manager for applications, you can remove any interest categories that don’t apply and Google will no longer use them for showing you interest-based ads. You can also change which demographic categories are associated with your cookies or anonymous identifiers. When you edit your ads preferences, your new settings may not take immediate effect, since it takes time for the change to be processed in our systems.
If you prefer not to receive interest-based advertising in web browsers, you can always click the “Opt out” button on the Ads Preferences Manager. When you are accessing the web through a web browser, Google also offers a number of options to permanently save your opt-out settings in your browser. After you opt out, Google will not collect interest category information and you will not receive interest-based ads via Google when accessing the web through a web browser. You will still see the same number of ads as before, and Google may still show relevant ads based on the content of a web page, or other non-personal information. For example, if you visit a gardening site, Google can determine the content of the site and may automatically show ads related to gardening to all visitors without using a cookie. Additionally, whenever we serve an ad on Google search or on the sites of our AdSense for search partners, the ads which are displayed may still be based on the search terms you enter.
If you prefer not to receive interest-based advertising in applications and other clients that use anonymous identifiers, you can always opt out using the appropriate preferences manager.
Read more about opting out of interest-based advertising in applications and other clients.
The Ads Preferences Manager is a Google site where you can manage settings associated with the ads you see. Our goal is to provide you with transparency and choice about the ads we show you.
A cookie is a snippet of text that is sent from a website’s servers and stored on a web browser. Like most websites and search engines, Google uses cookies in order to provide a better user experience and to serve relevant ads.
Google uses the DoubleClick cookie on AdSense sites, partner sites and certain Google services to serve more relevant ads across the web and limit the number of times a given ad is shown to you. When you visit a website, view an ad, or click an ad supported by Google’s advertising services, we may set a cookie on your browser. This advertising cookie will appear in your browser as coming from the domain “doubleclick.net” or from the domain of the site you are visiting.
When the cookie is set on your browser, it allows Google to gather information about your browser’s interaction with a given ad. This information gets recorded in a log that looks something like this:
time: 06/Aug/2008 12:01:32
ad_placement_id: 105
ad_id: 1003
userid: 0000000000000001
client_ip: 123.45.67.89
referral_url: "http://youtube.com/categories"
The “time” field reflects the time the ad was displayed. The “ad placement id” and “ad id” identify the advertising campaign and the specific ad served. The “userid” is the display ad cookie that identifies the browser. The “client IP” reflects the user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address. A “referral URL” indicates the URL of the page where the ad was served. Our logs also record whether a user’s browser clicks or interacts with an ad.
This information helps Google deliver ads that are relevant to your interests, control the number of times you see a given ad, and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns. Anyone who prefers not to see ads with this level of relevance can opt out. This opt-out will be specific only to the browser that you are using when you click the “Opt out” button.
To serve ads in services where cookie technology may not be available (for example, in applications and other clients), we may use anonymous identifiers. To serve ads that are relevant and tailored to your interests, we may use information about your activity in these services as well as non-personally identifying information, such as demographic data.
Mobile applications may have access to your device identifier and may pass it to Google when you use an application that displays Google AdSense or AdMob ads. Whether or not we receive your device identifier, we only associate information directly with anonymous identifiers, not with device identifiers themselves. In cases where we receive your device identifier, an anonymous identifier is created in association with your device. This allows you full control, because unlike a device identifier that you cannot change or delete, you can choose to reset or disable anonymous identifiers at any time.
Google Analytics is Google’s free web analytics tool that helps website owners understand how their visitors engage with their website. Google Analytics collects information anonymously, and much like examining footprints in sand, it reports website trends without identifying individual visitors. Analytics uses its own set of cookies to track visitor interactions. These cookies are used to store information, such as what time the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before, and what site referred the visitor to the web page. Google Analytics customers can view a variety of reports about how visitors interact with their website so they can improve their website and how people find it. A different set of cookies is used for each website, and visitors are not tracked across multiple sites. Analytics customers are obliged to notify users of their use of analytics software. To disable this type of cookie, some browsers will indicate when a cookie is being sent and allow you to decline cookies on a case-by-case basis. In addition to declining cookies, you can also install the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on in your browser, which prevents Google Analytics from collecting information about your website visits.
For customers that have enabled the Remarketing with Google Analytics feature, the third-party DoubleClick cookie is used to enable remarketing for products like AdWords on the Google Display Network. To manage your settings for this cookie and opt-out of this feature, visit the Ads Preferences Manager.
Beyond Google Analytics and DoubleClick cookies, Google uses cookies to help businesses that buy ads from Google determine how many people who click their ads end up purchasing their products. The conversion tracking cookie is set on your browser only when you click an ad delivered by Google where the advertiser has opted in to conversion tracking. These cookies expire within 30 days and do not contain information that can identify you personally. If this cookie has not yet expired when you visit certain pages of the advertiser’s website, Google and the advertiser will be able to tell that you clicked the ad and proceeded to that page. Each advertiser gets a different cookie, so no cookie can be tracked across advertiser websites. If you want to disable conversion tracking cookies, you can set your browser to block cookies from the googleadservices.com domain.
Additionally, due to the current lack of per-domain cookie settings in iOS and Android mobile browsers, you must disable all cookies in order to opt out of mobile conversion tracking.
You can use the Ads Preferences Manager for applications to edit associated interest categories, reset your ad preferences, or opt out of interest-based ads on your mobile device.
To change your preferences, simply follow the instructions below for your mobile device.
Android
iOS
Your mobile applications ads preferences may also be applied to “Ads by Google” within your web browser and vice versa. To manage your ads preferences for “Ads by Google” you see within browsers, visit the Ads Preferences Manager for browsers.
