According to a report released by ProPublica today, Google quietly changed its privacy policy in the past few months, allowing its advertising system to collect data that is associated with identifiable user information. Google’s DoubleClick ads can now use information from your Gmail to serve you up ads on YouTube or your YouTube search history on your phone to serve you up ads on Google search on your laptop. Instead of packaging away your information for each service, Google will be giving access to your entire user profile to advertisers.
To opt-out of this new policy:
- Go to My Account on your Google settings
- Go to Control Your Ads Settings under Personal Info and Privacy.
- You’ll see a button to turn off the setting allowing Google to suck up your data for advertisers.
