Google Advertising Cookies Part 1

This is an interesting article from IDG News Service (a tech publisher) explaining Google's advertising cookies.  Essentially Google is now planning to put a cookie on a user's computer which gives them ads based not just on what they type into the Google search engine, but based on what they view when they surf the web.  The cookie will apparently track all of a user's surfing, although a Googler lawyer says the company will not target advertisements to people they believe are children, or to medical conditions.  I had not thought about this, but it makes sense.  If you go online and look at a web site about diabetes, it may mean you have diabetes.  I suspect the average user would not want what could be information about their medical condition to be commodified this way.  I wonder what other categories Google will track, and advertise to?  How about sexual orientation?  Some people would have no problem with this information being traded online, but others would want it kept private.

This also struck my interest:

Ironically enough, the way that Google suggests people opt out of its cookie-based interest-tracking system is by allowing it to set a special cookie on their computers. However, the people that opt out of cookie-based tracking systems also tend to clear the cookies from their computer from time to time, which would result in Google once again tracking their interests via cookies.  To resolve this problem, Google also offers a plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer which will maintain the opt-out cookie even if other cookies are cleared from the browser.

So in order to opt out of the Google advertising cookie, you have to install a piece of Google software on your computer.  Or stop visiting Google.

I'm not wooed by Google's argument on its official blog that this will make ads more interesting.  However, I think there is some truth in this statement, from that blog post:

Advertising is the lifeblood of the digital economy: it helps support the content and services we all enjoy for free online today, including much of our news, search, email, video and social networks.

There is also an interesting section near the end of the IDG News Service article:

While Google will determine surfers’ interests based on the sites of its AdSense partners that they visit, other companies have more ambitious plans for tracking surfers’ online habits in order to sell targeted advertising.  In the U.K., a number of Internet service providers are considering adopting the Webwise service sold by a company called Phorm, allowing them to track all the sites that surfers visit. BT Group has said it will have the system in operation by the end of this year. However, the system has raised privacy concerns, and the European Commission has written to the U.K. government on three occasions asking it to ensure that the system complies with Europe’s laws on personal data protection.

It seems like there could be a lot of things you would have to opt out of, if you want to avoid being tracked this way.  Perhaps too many for most people to keep track of.