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I'm increasingly freaked out by the relevance of ads I see across sites. For example, I receive a joke mail about planning a trip to Antarctica, and now I start seeing Antarctica travel ads across sites that use AdSense.

I am curious whether or not my privacy is controlled more tightly if I upgrade to a Google Apps for Business account. My assumption is that I (as an admin of the domain) would better be able to control which data Google has access to.

Hopefully someone a little more fluent in legalese has looked at the Terms of Use for Google Apps. If not, I suppose I will go ahead reading it.

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  • That assumption would be incorrect. May 25, 2011 at 4:12
  • That seems like it would be a barrier to entry for businesses. But you seem to be correct. Thanks.
    – Zac
    May 25, 2011 at 18:26

3 Answers 3

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The advertisements you see following you around are not connected with whether or not you have a Google Apps account, business or otherwise.

What is happening is that you're being remarketed to across the Google Ad Display network.

The cookies in your browser help the ad network track what kind of interests you've been viewing on other sites and find relevant ads to you. The higher the relevance, the likelier you are to click on the ads.

You can decrease the rate of these ads following you around by opting out using the Google Advertising Cookie Opt-out Plugin and deleting your cookies on a regular basis.

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  • Are you saying that the email I receive has zero impact on the ads that end up getting targeted at me? My experience seems to indicate that mail does in fact affect the ads. Thanks for the link to the opt-opt plugin--it has helped a bit in the past.
    – Zac
    May 25, 2011 at 18:01
  • The contents of your emails, if using Google Apps, will help Google work out relevant ads to show you next time you come across a site that also runs Google Ads. @zac May 25, 2011 at 18:07
  • So am i understanding this right; if you pay for google apps, google will still collect the same amount of information from your use of google services as a free google services user?
    – Hemi
    Jan 29, 2012 at 23:20
  • @Zac AFAIK, only the ads in Gmail target information based on your emails. Feb 7, 2012 at 7:09
  • @Jaips Yes, unless you disable and opt out of all tracking services. Feb 7, 2012 at 7:09
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Actually it wont help you if you get a business account, google Ad Algorithms check the content on page and show relevant ad, sometime they also log/keep cookies/ip of user to show relevant ads. with business account you just get extra features/apps from google.

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No. If you're concerned, opt out of advertisement personalization


To opt out of advertisement tracking in google search goto:

http://google.com/dashboard

Scroll down to 'Web History' and opt out of the program.

To opt out of ads that appear in Gmail goto:

Settings (the gear icon) -> 'Mail Settings' -> 'Web Clips'

And uncheck the box next to 'Show my web clips above the Inbox'.

To disable 3rd party cookie tracking in Chrome goto:

Tools (the wrench icon) -> 'Options' -> 'Under the Hood' -> 'Content Settings' 

In the 'Content' section check the 'Block third-party cookies from being set' box.

This blocks banner and other website advertisements from saving persistent information about by blocking cross-domain cookie requests.

Note: While it won't stop advertisers from tracking your usage on a given website it will block them from saving persistent data across sessions.

For all the rest, take a look at the answer by @Eight Days of Malaise.

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