Google will stop selling ads based on users’ web browser history

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In a blog post earlier today, Google announced its plans to stop selling advertisements based on information gathered by tracking users’ web activity. This is part of a growing effort by the company to increase public relations concerning privacy issues on the internet.

Google announced last year that the Google Chrome browser would stop allowing the use of third-party cookies before 2022. After that has been accomplished, the company says that it will no longer use or invest in any tracking technologies for the purpose of tracking users’ web history.

The company is looking to move towards systems that can supply relevant data for targeted advertisements while maintaining individual users’ privacy.

Google is looking to make privacy a priority

This is massive news from the search giant. Chrome dominates the web browser game, responsible for almost 70% of all internet traffic. This is a great step towards an advertisement system that makes individual user privacy a priority.

In the blog post mentioned above, Google’s Director of Product Management, Ads Privacy and Trust David Temkin says:

“72% of people feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms or other companies, and 81% say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits…If digital advertising doesn’t evolve to address the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used, we risk the future of the free and open web.”

It looks like Google is beginning to make necessary strides to ensure that user privacy is not abandoned in favor of targeted advertising. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of the journey towards a safer, more secure internet experience for everyone.

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