It's non exactly news that Google knows a lot about you, and uses that data to show y'all ads. Only equally privacy becomes an increasingly important topic in the tech manufacture, many users desire the ability to control what kind of ads they see.

Google's answer? My Ad Center, an all-in-one advertising personalization hub. In this article, let's encounter what it is, how it works, and how you can use information technology to manage your ad preferences online.

Before nosotros meet how you can apply My Ad Eye to customize your ad preferences, let's look at how Google collects and uses your information to show you lot ads across various Google products.

Given ads are a large part of the visitor, Google wants to show you lot personalized results and ads. It does that by learning every bit much most you lot as possible using the info in your Google account. This includes your age, gender, location, search history, YouTube history, relationship status, and more.

Someone holding an iPhone with the Google page open

This data is used to create your ad ID, and yous can admission it too. Alongside other revelations at Google I/O 2022, the company announced My Ad Center, a place where you can personalize your ad preferences to see more or less ads of a category.

The idea behind My Advert Center is simple: instead of having Google approximate what you similar and potentially get it incorrect and show you irrelevant ads, you tin just tell Google straight what you lot similar and see ads that volition be really useful. It's an initiative to brand your human relationship with Google more transparent, and give yous control over how your data gets used.

Follow these steps to use My Ad Center to modify your Google ad preferences:

  1. Get to My Ad Centre and brand sure Personalized ads are enabled. If not, you lot won't be able to set custom advertising preferences.
  2. The first department is Ad topics for you. Here, you'll see a diversity of advert categories that Google has selected for you based on your contempo ads and net activity such as Gaming, Investing, Fitness, and more. To run across fewer or more ads from a particular category, tap the - or + push on it, respectively.
  3. The second section is Brands for you lot. Here, yous'll see a range of brands that Google thinks you might be interested in. Similar to the last point, tap the - or + button to see fewer or more than ads from a item brand.
  4. The third department is Your contempo ads. Here, you can review the ads that you've recently seen on Google products such as Search, YouTube, or Notice, and judge whether they are of interest to you.
  5. For a more in-depth await, become to the Customize Ads menu from the side panel. Hither, you tin sort topics and brands based on proper name, nigh recent, and most seen. You tin also filter them to run into what you've chosen to meet fewer or more ads from.
  6. Certain topics such equally Dating, Gambling, Pregnancy, and Weight loss are considered sensitive. Go to the Sensitive tab and toggle them off if you desire to see fewer ads about these topics.
  7. To amend the data Google has collected nearly you, get to the Manage Privacy menu. Here, you can verify the accuracy of categories such as Relationships, Household Income, Education, and more than. You lot tin can too turn off any of these categories entirely.
  8. Under Action used to personalize ads, you lot can choose whether you desire your spider web activity, YouTube history, and location history to be used to show you personalized ads.
  9. To see all the changes you made to your ad preferences, click My Activeness at the bottom of the page.

My Advertisement Heart is currently only accessible via the website, but nosotros're hoping that information technology will come integrated into Android 14, so that more people tin employ the platform.

Run into More than Relevant Ads on Google

Google clearly has a lot of data on yous, but not all of information technology is accurate. The guesswork that it does to determine things about y'all based on your activity and usage can be the cause of you seeing inappropriate and irrelevant ads. If you want to come across more relevant ads, My Ad Heart is a great tool.

Notwithstanding, you should non forget that revealing your likes and preferences tin can also discipline yous to greater degrees of tracking. You might fifty-fifty start seeing ads that are so personalized that they experience threatening or predatory. To safeguard yourself from the aforementioned, you should learn the ways you tin can finish your phone from tracking you.