|
More Privacy Choices Are Just A Click Away
By NAPS,
North American Precis Syndicate
. New York
,
NY
.
Photo:
NAPS
The digital advertising industry created a way to protect your privacy and give you information and control over ads. Just click the blue triangle. (NAPS) |
(NAPSI)—If you’re like most people, changing the settings on
your computer or smartphone can be a frustrating experience, full of
technological jargon, confusing menus and complicated controls.
That’s why the digital advertising industry decided to create a
simple and intuitive way for people to get information and make choices about
certain types of online ads they get. It’s as easy as clicking a blue
triangle.
In the corner of many online and mobile ads today, there’s a little
blue triangle, sometimes labeled “AdChoices” or “Your
AdChoices.” That triangle is known as the YourAdChoices icon, and it
can be your gateway to trustworthy information and control over digital ads.
When you see the blue triangle, it means the ad might be using information
collected from other websites about your interests to help personalize
advertising for you. The icon gives you information about how that process
works, along with choices to “opt out” if you don’t want to
see that type of advertising, which is known as “interest-based
advertising.” It makes predictions about the types of ads groups of
people might want to see based on data about the websites or apps they enjoy,
such as sports, movies, hobbies or travel.
To protect privacy, most advertising systems are designed to not connect
that data to actual names or identities. Instead, those systems use a
non-identifiable string of text—such as jsf284vn732ebu19dp—for
each computer or mobile device, which lets them deliver ads to that device.
Most people find that type of advertising more relevant and helpful than
generic ads. If you’re shopping for a new camera, it can show you ads
for discounts or camera accessories you might need. If your team won the playoffs,
it can make it easy to buy the team’s new championship gear. If you
love to travel, it can help you find bargains and little-known destinations.
Perhaps equally important, those ads help fund the free websites,
services, and apps you use every day, including e-mail, news, videos, social
media, photos, maps and search.
If you want to learn more about an ad or control your choices, clicking on
the icon gives you information about the companies that brought you the ad
and a way to turn off the collection and use of data for interest-based
advertising from those companies in the future.
In addition, to learn more or control your preferences for hundreds of
companies at once, you can go to YourAd
Choices.com, which serves as a control panel for companies engaged in
interest-based advertising.
When you visit that site, you get access to a tool that performs a quick
system check and shows you which companies are currently customizing ads for
your browser. With a few clicks, you can opt out of receiving those types of
ads from any of those companies or all of them at once.
The site also offers information and tools in the mobile world via the YourAdChoices.com mobile website and
the “AppChoices” app, available for download from all major app
stores.
Run by the Digital Advertising Alliance, a non-profit self-regulatory
program created and supported by the advertising industry, the YourAdChoices
program—including Web Choices and AppChoices—gives millions of
people the tools to control their online advertising experiences. The icon is
now served more than a trillion times a month worldwide, making it easy to
find and use on all of your devices.
Americans deserve control
over how information about them is used for advertising. Happily,
there’s a system that protects privacy by design and makes it easy to
get information and control. Just click the blue triangle. The digital
advertising industry created a way to protect your privacy and give you
information and control over ads. Just click the blue triangle.
 “Americans deserve control over
how information about them is used for advertising—and they can have it
by clicking the YourAdChoices icon, the small blue triangle in ads, created
by the non-profit Digital Advertising
Alliance. http://bit.ly/2Mg0Bhu”
On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate, Inc.(NAPSI)
|
