Targeted Ads……Opt-Out?

 

We’ve all visited websites displaying numerous ads. These same ads seem to be popping up from places we’ve been around the internet. And yes, they are following us. Recently, this all came to a head when on my Facebook page the ads went way over the top with the flashing and the audio screaming at me. I couldn’t leave my Facebook page open any longer. I’d open it only to check it, then close again.

That’s what finally got me started investigating where these were all coming from. It seemed that some friends were not getting the same activity that I was. I started by clicking the link below one of the ads that read “about this ad”. Here is what I learned….

The link directed me to the website Pulse 360, an advertising agency who is a leader in content targeted advertising on the internet. Once here I first learned that I could opt-out of their tracking my movements around the web and they would no longer target ads at me when I visited any of the sites where they were posting ads. I opted out!.

While on their site they also had a link that would direct me to the Network Advertising Initiative website. The NIA helps protect our privacy online. When I clicked on their Opt-Out link I was directed to the Opt-Out page and was surprised to see the long list of active cookies that had been installed on my computer. I chose to ‘select all’ and then ‘submit’ to Opt-Out of all of them. However, there was one that is no longer with the NIA so I was provided a link to go to that site to opt-out. That one is Quantcast.

I then went to the Quantcast website and found they also had and active cookie on my computer. I opted out of that one too.

Now maybe my Facebook page was cleaned up and I would no longer have all those obnoxious ads running on my page. I was wrong! They were still all there. I then thought that if I cleared my cookies they would go away. That turned out to be a mistake. You don’t want to clear your cookies after you opt-out, as what opt-out does is to install cookies on your computer that disables any active cookies placed there by the advertiser. And, the ads on Facebook were still there anyway. I had to go back  through the process to opt-out all over again.

I continued my research to find out why I was still getting those ads. I don’t recall how I came across this next site, but this one is Plural Media LLC. They are yet another one of those advertisers on the web. As I read to the bottom of the page I saw they had a link to disable Page Rage. An application that will put a neat wall paper background on your Facebook page. That’s right, I had it on mine. Having seen it on a friends computer I wanted it too. So maybe if I disabled it the ads would go away. I went to http://www.pagerage.com/disable/ and disabled Page Rage. When I went back to my Facebook page it was refreshingly clean. No more ads.

I can now go to any favorite sites and not be bombarded with a lot of targeted advertising. Yes, there are still a few, I didn’t get them all. But my web experience is a lot more pleasant now without the ads following me around.

If your having the experiences I was having, or if you just want to have a higher level of privacy while web surfing, you know one more step you can take, Opt-Out of targeted advertising. It’s easy to do once you know where to go.

One more thing I should mention is that if you’re using more than one browser, I have four installed, you will need to go though the opt-out process for each one of them as the cookies will be installed on each browser.

I hope this gives you, the reader, a greater sense of control over the internet and you have a greater degree of privacy when using it. I know I do.

-Ed