Privacy Center Privacy CenterLast modified: March 11, 2009 (view archived versions)
The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google’s products and services, including our advertising services. In addition, this Privacy Policy describes our privacy practices related to text and display advertising that appear on our own sites and on the sites of our AdSense partners in the Google content network.
Google also offers display advertising services through DoubleClick. For more information see our privacy practices related to DoubleClick advertising products.
When we serve a text ad on Google Search or on the sites of our AdSense for search partners, those ads may be served based on a variety of factors, including: your recent search queries, the language we believe you prefer when performing your search, and standard log information, including cookie information, IP address, browser type, operating system and the date and time of your request.
When we serve text and display ads on certain Google services and AdSense partner sites, those ads may be served based on a variety of factors including: the content, domain, and language of the page where the ad is displayed; and the standard log information described above. To serve ads that are relevant and tailored to your interests, we may use information about your activity on AdSense partner sites or Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie. Some of these sites and services also may use non-personally identifying information, such as demographic data, to provide relevant advertising. Our AdSense partners and Google services may display ads from both Google advertisers and other third-party ad serving companies, including other ad networks, provided they comply with Google’s third-party ad serving requirements.
When we serve an ad to you, we may place a cookie in your browser. A cookie is a text file, consisting of a series of random numbers and letters that serves as a pseudonymous identifier for your browser, but does not identify you. We use cookies, web beacons or other technologies to record information about what ads your browser is shown, as well as what ads you click and other actions you take on our sites and services. Cookies allow us to serve more relevant and useful ads to you. The following describes how our cookies work to support our advertising services and conversion tracking, and how you can opt out of receiving these cookies.
Google uses the DoubleClick cookie on AdSense partner sites and certain Google services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web. When you visit a website and view or click on an ad served through these sites, we may place the DoubleClick cookie on your browser. The DoubleClick cookie identifier associated with your web brower is the same identifier used when you visit websites that use DoubleClick advertising services. If you already have a DoubleClick cookie on your browser, no additional DoubleClick cookies should be dropped.
For more information about the use of the DoubleClick cookie in DoubleClick’s advertising services, check out the DoubleClick Privacy FAQ.
You may view and manage your advertising preferences or opt out of receiving the DoubleClick cookie at any time, as described below.
We use the advertising cookie information collected on AdSense partner sites and certain Google sites to:
The advertising cookie information described above is provided to advertisers and publishers who use our advertising services. In addition, Google or our advertising and publishing customers may use web beacons in conjunction with the DoubleClick cookie to collect information about your visit to the website and exposure to a particular advertisement.
Google will not combine DoubleClick cookie information from AdSense partner sites or Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie with:
Google strives to provide you with relevant and useful advertising. Based on activity on our Adsense partner sites and Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie, we may associate the cookie with relevant interest categories. Google then uses these categories to show interest-based ads on these sites. Google will not associate sensitive interest categories with the DoubleClick cookie (such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation, health, or sensitive financial categories) and will not use these categories when showing you interest-based ads.
You may view, edit and add to the categories used to provide you with interest-based advertising in the Ads Preferences Manager. Your ads preferences will be respected across all AdSense partner sites and Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie to serve such ads.
Read more information about interest-based advertising and the Ads Preferences Manager.
You may choose to opt out of the DoubleClick cookie at any time.
If you select the DoubleClick opt-out cookie, ads delivered to your browser by our ad-serving technology will not be served based on the DoubleClick cookie. Your DoubleClick opt-out cookie will not be uniquely identified. Other customization options on AdSense partner sites and Google services that use the DoubleClick cookie may no longer be available; for example, we may no longer be able to prevent your browser from being served with the same ad over and over.
As long as your browser retains the DoubleClick opt-out cookie, Google won’t serve new DoubleClick cookies to your browser.
Using a tool created by the Network Advertising Initiative, of which Google is a member, you can opt out of several third party ad servers’ and networks’ cookies simultaneously.
When you get a new computer, install a new browser, erase or otherwise alter your browser’s cookie file (including upgrading certain browsers) you may also clear the cookies in your browser, including the DoubleClick opt-out cookie. Google offers a number of options to preserve your opt-out cookie.
Google also uses a cookie to measure advertising performance for advertisers who have opted-in to conversion tracking on Google and its AdSense partners websites. The conversion tracking cookie is set when a user clicks on an ad delivered by Google where the advertiser has opted-in to tracking. These cookies expire within 30 days and are not personally-identifiable. If this cookie has not yet expired when the user visits certain pages of the advertiser’s website, Google and the advertiser will be able to tell that the user clicked the ad and proceeded to that page. Each advertiser gets a different cookie, so no cookie can be tracked across advertiser websites.
We use the information collected by the conversion cookie to provide aggregate conversion stats to advertisers who have opted-in to conversion tracking. Advertisers are able to see the total number of users who have clicked on their ad and proceeded to a page tagged with a conversion tracking tag, but they do not have access to personally identifying information.
If you want to disable conversion tracking cookies, you can set your browser to block cookies from the googleadservices.com domain.
Google requires customers that display Google ads to comply with all applicable laws, including data protection laws that require posting a privacy policy. We encourage all users to review the privacy policies of sites they visit for information about those sites’ data practices.
If you have any questions about this policy, please feel free to contact us online or write to us at
Privacy Matters