farmboy - 4:01 pm on Mar 16, 2009 (gmt 0)

They are STILL GOING TO SHOW your visitors "interest based ads" based on info from other sites. You can't opt out of G showing "interest based ads" on your site!

That's not how I read it. The quote from Google posted in a previous post in this thread was from an answer to a question about whether the privacy policy still needs to be changed if the publisher has opted out of ads based on interest categories.

Here's that quote with more context:

Yes, you'll still need to update your privacy policy. Even if you choose to opt out of displaying ads based on interest categories, your site(s) will continue to show ads based on user interactions with an advertiser, such as visits to advertiser sites. As a result, your privacy policy still needs to reflect interest-based advertising.

The even if you choose to opt out part tells me you can opt out and the continue to show ads part tells me they are going to continue to show ads based on user interactions with an advertiser, as they have been doing, and the privacy policy needs to be updated to reflect that.

In other words, ads are available based on (1) User Interest Categories (new) and (2) Ads based on user interactions with an advertiser (same as before).

You can opt out of (1) if you want.

Even if ads based on User Interest Categories were not being introduced at this time, they are telling us our privacy policy needs to be updated anyway - to reflect that ads are being displayed based on interest - interest shown by prior ad clicking to be specific.

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By the way, I have some sites that cover some specific niches. Based on what I've seen on various sites that try to develop categories, I really don't think this ads-by-category thing is going to be a big deal, especially for publishers with sites like mine - unless Google has some people with VERY diverse knowledge and who have spent a lot of time and effort in developing categories.

FarmBoy