Advertising is the primary source of income for scores of sites and services across the internet, but sometimes the methods used to push products can be a little invasive. Now, Google has announced plans to give users more power to filter out the worst offenders.
It’s not uncommon for online retailers to take visitors prior activity into account when they visit their site. For instance, if you’ve previously placed a certain item in your basket but didn’t go through with the purchase, said item is more likely to show up in banner advertisement in an attempt to convince you to reconsider.
Sometimes, this works out for both parties — you might have forgotten all about that purchase, and the reminder might be pretty useful. In other cases, you may well have decided against buying that item outright, so there’s no point in seeing further adverts.
Google is now allowing users to mute these “reminder ads” in apps, and across websites that partner with the search giant for their advertising, according to a report from CNET. Going forward, the company plans to expand this functionality to cover YouTube, its search engine, and Gmail, according to a blog post published on January 25.
To take advantage of this new functionality, users should sign into the Google Account, head to Ads Settings, and find the section titled “Your reminder ads.” There, they can review a list of advertisers, clicking the X symbol to remove any reminder ads that they would prefer not to see. Muting will take effect on non-Google websites that utilize the company’s ad platform.
Google’s “Mute This Ad” feature, which allows users to prevent a specific piece of ad content from appearing again, is also being upgraded. It will now recognize feedback from any device, as long as you’re signed in with your Google account, and it’s set to appear across a larger swathe of the web thanks to new partnerships.
Advertising is big business for Google, so while these change are a boon for users, they’re also beneficial for the company. Targeted ads are the priority, since if the content isn’t relevant to the interests of the individual, they’re unlikely to have much effect.
Related Posts
How to change margins in Google Docs
You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.
What is Microsoft Teams? The Slack rival does things other collaborative tools can’t
With Microsoft Teams, you're able to chat, video conference, share documents and edit them together, and easily coordinate schedules and workflows. Recently, Microsoft Teams did get a price bump for Microsoft Personal users (from $7 to $10), and the company also added a wave of AI agents into the mix.
Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs
However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs. How does each word processing program compare? To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.