Updates to our partner ads setting control

Did you recently get this email from Google? I did. Read on for what to do about it.

Updates to our partner ads setting control

Dear Google User,

At Google, we believe you should always be in control of your data. That’s why we’ve built My Ad Center and many Google Account tools, like Privacy Checkup, that make it easy to manage your data, privacy, and security settings.

Building on these controls, we’re introducing a new setting through Google Partner ad settings that lets you choose whether to provide additional information to advertising partners when you visit websites and apps that partner with Google. This data allows advertising partners to select which ads to show you and measure ad performance.

You can learn more about the tools you have available through Google, and about controls across partner sites and apps. Sincerely,

Your Google team

So should you go to Google’s Partner Ad Settings and turn off the two available options?

Yes, do it. It can’t hurt. If you look at the research, people who are getting personalized ads are probably worse off. After turning personalized ads off, you’re probably going to be less likely to get targeted for gambling ads or scams.

So go ahead and turn off both “Personalized ads on partner sites & apps” and “Help advertisers select ads for you”.

But those settings only affect so-called “RTB” (real-time bidding) ads on non-Google sites. (Because of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit, if you’re interested in the origin story) And the RTB ads are only a wretched-ish hive of scum and villainy compared to the real deal, the scams in the search ads. Those are bad enough that the FBI warns you to block them entirely.

So after turning off the “partner” ads, the important setting you need to check is in My Ad Center. Go there and turn off “personalized ads”. More: Click this to buy better stuff and be happier.

At this point you would still be getting non-personalized search ads, which is not ideal. But at least you’re probably less likely to be targeted for scams that you’re more likely to fall for, like ads that fake some software or service you really use. To deal with the remaining search ads, along with removing “AI Overviews” slop and other ways that Google Search has gotten worse, see fix Google Search.

Bonus links

Firefox browser has started shipping Brave’s adblock-rust engine by Shivan Kaul. You just can’t ship a serious browser these days without blocking third-party ads and trackers by default. Happy to see others realizing this too. (A usable browser also needs some kind of element blocking too, because of all the crime in the search ads. First vs. third party is not a good dividing line.)

In Interesting Times, Who Cares Wins by Brian Jacobs. Today, 50% of UK ad funds goes to the giant US platforms. That figure will increase as about 70% of incremental spending finishes up in the same place. (It’ll be worse if the attribution cartel wins.)

Fraudulent Cryptocurrency App in Mac App Store Stole $9.5 Million From 50-Some Users by Molly White. (Can we retire the expression “walled gardens”?) Related: The Wall Street Journal Wonders Why There Are Suddenly So Many Sleazy Fees)

Why Is the New York Times Laundering the Reputation of a Sleazy AI Startup That’s Selling GLP-1s via a Dishonest Dumpster Fire of Fake Doctors, Phony Before-and-After Pictures, a Warning From the FDA, and Other Glaring Red Flags? by Maggie Harrison Dupré. The NYT‘s tech coverage is generally pretty solid. But the framing of its story, and what it left out, left us pretty stunned. That’s because back in May of last year, we ran our own investigation of Medvi — and not only was what we found far more disturbing than the NYT‘s credulous story let on, but the situation has gotten even worse since then.