Internet giant Google has launched a new portal which its users can use to personalize the ads they will see. All Google users will soon be getting a notification from the company via Gmail or Chrome, prompting users to check their security settings. The prompt includes an option to give Google access to all the information associated with the Google account, such as YouTube, Chrome and such. Google were nice enough to let its users to opt out from having this feature enabled. If a user opts in with this new feature, they will have the ability to enable Google’s search engine and other Google-related services to block certain ads from appearing on every device that they log into, instead of having to make a special request on each individual device.
All the info which is collected from users will go to Google’s new My Activity site. My Activity acts as a link hub for Google’s various data-collecting services which users can choose to turn on or off such as location history and browser history. All of Google’s Services which are used will now be displayed in neatly arranged cards on the ‘My Activity’ site. However, all activity displayed can only be viewed by the user and not anyone else, thus maintaining privacy. What’s even better is that users can delete anything on the page.
Google’s business has been built on a practice of monitoring its users’ behavior online in an effort to learn more about their interests so it can display ads that will better suit their taste. These customized ads are usually shown alongside Google’s search results and on websites. This has turned Alphabet Inc., which is Google’s corporate side, into one of the most profitable companies. With the new My Activity site, Google plans to further minimize complaints about invading it’s users privacy. Google isn’t the first to introduce something like this, as Facebook recently introduced something similar, except Facebook doesn’t give it’s users the choice to opt in unlike Google. All one billion of Google’s users will soon receive the notification, so be on the lookout for it on Gmail and Chrome. Data in My Activity may not show for everyone in every country yet but eventually, all users will get the feature.