Being Tracked By Online Ads? Opting Out Is Getting Easier

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Says Google:

“The industry has faced a recurring technical challenge with these opt-outs and controls. If you clear your browser’s cookies, all customized settings — including these opt-outs — are lost. Another challenge is that sometimes new companies offer opt-outs, so you’d have to check frequently to make sure you’re opted out of what you want. A better ‘Do Not Track’ mechanism is a browser extension that means you can easily opt out of personalized advertising from all participating ad networks only once and store that setting permanently.”

If you use the Chrome web browser, you can install the extension here.

Members of the team behind Mozilla’s Firefox web browser have also been exploring similar opt-out procedures. The latest proposal outlines what would be a setting in the browser’s preferences menu that would signal to participating ad networks your desire not to be tracked.

The next version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser will feature “Tracking Protection” letting you opt out of being tracked by participating ad networks, as well as letting you manually blacklist other ad networks.

The FTC’s proposal, along with the upcoming browser-centric methods for controlling tracking behavior are steps in the right direction. However, the challenge still lies in blocking less-than-reputable ad networks from gathering information about you.

It could also potentially upset certain revenue models on the internet. A lot of the “free” content that’s available on the web is supported not only by ads but by the ad networks’ ability to sell the information they gather about users.

More on TIME.com:

FTC’s ‘Do Not Track’ Is More ‘Please Don’t Track’

Commerce Department Pushes for Online Privacy Bill of Rights

Twitter, Wikileaks and the Broken Market for Consumer Privacy

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