Customize Your Own Internet Ads?

The internet's leading advertiser, Google, has just launched a new advertising program called "interest" advertising through Google Ads Preferences, which allows users to enter their interests so Google can provide specialized advertising. Google has also added tracker cookies to detect sites that users have recently visited, which promote advertisements from those visited sites.

This new advertising program is a smart move by Google, but am I the only person who thinks this is really creepy? Google does allow users to opt out of the tracking cookies (which can be done through the link above), but 99% of internet users won't even think twice about performing this action.

On one hand, I don't know why Google hasn't been doing this for years. On the other, I would have to think that this has to be getting pretty close to violating internet privacy laws. Just thinking about Google storing users' webpage history for their own monetary gain seems nerve-wracking, however, Google claims this information is kept confedential.

The video below is Google's take on their new advertising platform.