Yahoo! has released a beta version of a new consumer tool Ad Interest Manager, which is a central place where Yahoo! visitors can view a summary of their online activity and make constructive choices about their exposure to interest-based advertising served from the Yahoo! Ad Network.
The company said that the new offering provides visitors with a view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising and enables them to assert control over their online experience.
In addition, the new tool also provides a list of specific interest categories that the company has placed a user into and allows people turn those categories off and allows people who don’t want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely.
Anne Toth, vice president of policy and head of privacy at Yahoo!, said: “Ads tailored to users’ interests make online experiences more compelling and user-focused, and the new tool Yahoo! is launching today will provide transparency into how Yahoo!’s interest-based advertising works.
“Yahoo! is committed to providing consumers with increased transparency and control when they are online. Ad Interest Manager will show users what interests we think they have, and also let them edit and change those interests to reflect the most up-to-date information.”
The Ad Interest Manager is currently available in beta in the US and is expected to soon made available to the UK and European users. Planned future enhancements to the Ad Interest Manager will also allow users add categories of interest.
