Google begins rollout of new ad controls for Search, YouTube

Google has started the global rollout of My Ad Centre, a new feature that will allow users to control the type of advertisements they want to see on Search, YouTube, and Discover. It will also allow users to restrict ads on specific topics, choose the brands whose ads they want to or don’t want to see, and learn which information related to them is being used to show them personalized ads.

My Ad Centre will also let users completely turn off personalized ads. “If you choose not to see personalized ads, you’ll still see ads, but you may find them less relevant or useful,” said Jerry Dischler, VP/GM, Ads at Google. The My Ad Centre was first showcased at the Google I/O developer event in May.

Google said that it is also enhancing ad disclosures with new advertiser pages for more transparency. The disclosures can be used to see the ads a verified advertiser has run in the last 30 days.

According to industry experts, these ad controls will provide a huge boost to permission-based advertising which strives to give users more control over what ads they want to see or avoid. It will also make brands more sensitive and responsible in terms of how they want to present their ads.

The roll-out of privacy laws and the crackdown by regulators on unethical practices have forced digital ad platform providers such as Google to move away from problematic methods of tracking users through cookies and targeting them with specific ads.

All major browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox now restrict tracking through cookies by default. Google too is expected to phase out third party cookies from Chrome by 2024 and replace it with an interest-based tracking method called Topic API, which will show ads based on the interests of users.

Most of Google’s revenue comes from advertising. According to the company’s financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 2022, the total revenue was $69.68 billion out of which $56.28 billion came from the advertising business.