MEDIAWEEK, 11 Mar 2009: Google is expanding its display offering by launching a behavioural targeting ad programme that will display ads across its AdSense content network and YouTube.
The service, Interest Based Advertising, which launches today (11 March) in test form, tracks online users' behaviour through their browser cookies as they visit one of the sites that show ads through Google's AdSense program. AdSense is an ad application under which website owners can enable text, image and video ads on their websites.
In turn, the new service offers users relevant targeted ads based on their online activity. Sensitive information, such as religion, sexual orientation, pornography, medical issues and political agenda will be not be captured. Google will assign users to categories based on their cookies. For example, a user may be labelled a sports enthusiast or potential property hunter.
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