for publishers to opt out go to :

My Account > Account Settings > Interest based ads

you can disable it here :-)

On the "My Account" tab in Adsense, toward the bottom, there is a section called Interest-based Ads Preference which allows you to opt out. Opting out also means that data collected from your site will not be used in determining interest categories.

I just opted out. Didn't like the fact it was already enabled.

New options shouldn't be configured as enabled as default right?

That's not the way Google has ever worked, for AdWords or AdSense. Opt in is default.

Wait, so that means whereever I go there will be an ad matching my interests? Cool, instead of boring Google Ads there will be ads about boobies on every adsense based site. I could live with that.

Just wanted to let you know that I'll post more on this. I just need to make sure I've got all my facts straight before I say anything. Nobody likes a factually incorrect ASA.

ASA

For me this one was going to be either opt out or leave Google.

Thankfully we can opt out!

Now -- for those who opt out -- we shouldn't have to make the changes to our privacy policy, right?

I don't want to be bothered with the extra work since I've opted out.

opted out too

no interest on this concept

Oh heck. I opted back in. It can't get any worse than it already is.

So I doubt if the effect you are seeing is due to interest-based advertising.

Oh really? I just checked and the option is available under the My Account tab. And, yes, it was turned on.

I reckon that - as Minority Report mentioned - this is more a glimpse of the future.
I visit my youtube page, see videos I might like; to amazon, and recommended items. Recommended ads liable to seem a natural progression: but indeed, don't want to see all same ads no matter what site I'm on.
Privacy important too, of course; plenty of balancing acts to come!

Also, with economy "pretty dire", I wonder if google Command n Control has tech guys making various changes faster than they might wish, in bid to limit falls in revenue. (If so, not working too welll for me this month!)

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

So, what is the purpose of opting out?

(bolding by me)

This day is very low. Whew ...

And also I opt out the internet based ads in my account.

I think we could over-react to this - will it mean a major shift to the ads on our sites or a subtle shift? Subtle I can probably cope with. My niche is very relevant to young people (17-20) but not relevant to most of what they browse on the internet. If I get ads for mp3's, videos, celebrities and stuff I won't be happy. I want ads based on my niche topic. Now of course if Google can micromanage this right, they will realise this too! I'm guessing that what's good for the publishers is good for the big G.

Maybe the ads weren't shown on my site (and maybe they were). I know the day they announced this, my CTR on my largest site sucked and when I opted out, the CTR went back to normal.

See, this is why I really wish we could opt out/in by adblock or by channel. I am starting the high season on my biggest site. I CAN'T afford a account wide test of this right now. If they gave me the option to start small, I could do some testing, find where it works. Maybe put interest ads in the side bar and content focused ads in the copy. Play around with it to make it work.

But since it is all or nothing, I have to turn it off. Testing is not an option right now. maybe in the low season I will turn it back on, if I remember.

CTR went downhill.... I opted out

It's just occurred to me that in most homes the computer is shared, so the person doing the browsing may be seeing ads that are relevant to the last users browsing habits, this could be kids ads or worst still ads for adults e.g sex ads. I just typed sex into Google and some ads came up that I definitely do not want my site to be associated with.

Buy a second machine for naughty browsing?

On a more serious note I will repeat a question I put in the Privacy Statement thread. It isn't clear to me what happens if you opt out as a publisher. Are visits to your site not tracked or does it just mean that you don't get any "benefit" from the tracking?

I'm getting all KFC and diet ads this morning. What does that say about me? I'm a unhealthy wreck!?

It has got me pegged! ;-)

Interestingly, my earnings this morning have been about twice normal... even though my CTR is in the dumps. I'll leave it for a few days to see how it goes.

Ads are, at least in my opinion, a part of the user experience. I want them to be relevant to my site, in a way that they actually supplement whatever content I have on my site.

That makes sense if you've got a niche site in a category that attracts decent-paying targeted ads. But not all sites fall under that heading. Newspaper sites, for example, typically earn abysmal CPMs (and, presumably, AdSense eCPMs) because readers aren't in "shopping research mode" when they're reading about the war in Afghanistan or the latest bad news from Wall Street.

I'd guess that if you've got, say, a site about industrial widgets or luxury cruising, you'll continue to see ads for those topics. But if you've got a site that doesn't attract high-paying contextual ads, ads that are targeted to the readers' known interests will perform better (and will be more useful to readers) than the kinds of ads that Google has been displaying on your pages.

Yesterday was mess for me and today I had really low CTR, but the CPC is through the roof. I didn't opt out.

Regardless of revenue, I just opted out of it until I learn more about it.

Particularly since it apparently requires us to update our privacy policy, I feel they (Google) are putting me at risk by setting this to "on" by default and then emailing me to update my privacy policy.

I need to do more research before I just "update" my privacy policy and notify my 100,000 registered users that we are now watching their every move.

Revenue is up. Updated my privacy policy. Who reads it anyway?

For the previous two days, my performance was down across the board. Today it seems to have returned to normal.

Obviously the smart thing for G to do would be to turn this feature on, test it for a couple of days, and if it's clearly damaging earnings then turn it off. I wonder if that's what happened.

Seems to me that this is going to make it almost impossible to tell which ads might be pulling the ecpm and ctr down, since everyone's seeing different ads (if I understand it right). I generally know what ads are currently appearing on my sites, so when my numbers drop, I can know which ad is causing the problem and block it.

I'm staying opted in, both as a user and a publisher. What the hell. No guts, no glory.

(As I said before, Google is actually *late* coming to this particular party. Everyone else has been there for months or years.)

Ecpm +40% errr interesting. Will keep an eye on it. Maybe just coincidence.

OK, lots of questions to answer, so I'll go through them one by one. I'll warn you that I wrote everything you're about to read, but I've run it by some folks here before posting it to make sure I've got my facts straight.

ASA,
Is this the reason why adsense is behaving so wildly this month (aside from the bug you already mentioned, of course)?

I have today lowest of this month CTR and eCPM
Is the experiement running now?

This feature has had no effect on the performance of the ads on your site. The beta for Interest Based Advertising will begin on April 8, and that's why we've asked publishers to update their privacy policies by that date.

Will there be away to turn this off?

You can opt out of interest category marketing (showing ads based on a user's categories of interest), but I personally don't think you should. None of you have had the opportunity to try it yet. Lately it feels like half the conversations on this forum are about revenue. Interest-based advertising should increase your earnings as more advertisers use it in their campaigns.

Because interest-based ads will compete in the auction, your site will only show those ads if they pay more than what you'd otherwise get with contextually targeted or placement-targeted ads. In other words, all the ads (interest-based, contextually targeted, placement targeted) will compete in the auction, and the ad with the highest eCPM will show on your site.

But yes, you can opt out of ads targeted using interest categories. freejung and a bunch of others made the point already, but I’ll reiterate because it’s important to note that you can opt out. Go into your account, click on the “My Account” tab, and scroll down to “Interest-based Ads” to set your preferences. Please note that while you can opt out of showing ads based on interest categories, but not based on a user's previous interactions with an advertiser's site. There's more information in the Help Center article here [google.com].

what's the point of us building a page reviewing an item, promoting its sale, to better plug the ad, if they're just going to bung another ad on there about a completely different product.

Regardless of how the ad is targeted, it will have to win the auction. Just as contextually targeted and placement-targeted ads compete against each other, ads targeted through interest-based advertising will compete in the auction. The ad with the highest predicted eCPM will show.

However, the average user definitely notices popups and is annoyed by them. If G does this right, the average user will never even be aware that it is happening.

The actual goal is to provide a better experience for users of your site by serving them the ads they're most likely to benefit from. (And definitely not pop-up ads. We never serve pop-up ads.) The Ads Preferences Center [google.com] that users can reach by clicking on the "Ads by Google" link on an ad allows users to select the types of ads they’d like to receive (which means a higher likelihood of interaction with the ad and hopefully a higher eCPM for you). Using their history and their stated preferences, we can serve users ads for things they actually want. (If you want more information on the controls open to users, check out the post on the Google Public Policy Blog.)

I think many people use the web like that. I don't want camera ads because now I'm looking at printer toner sources. I wanted camera stuf five minutes ago.

FWIW, this morning I visited Amazon and they reminded me of something I searched for a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten about it but made a purchase this morning.

I can’t speak for everyone, but my buying habits are more like FarmBoy’s. If I’m in the market for a camera, I look around and read reviews for a long time before I buy one. :)

Seriously, though, I urge you to read up on this and educate yourself on what we're doing. To be perfectly frank, I had a lot of questions at first for a lot of the reasons that you guys mention. I've been in a lot of meetings and I've had a lot of conversations about it, and I'm satisfied with what I've learned about what we're doing and how we're doing it. I truly believe that this is the right thing to do for you guys, for advertisers, and for users. And I like the fact that we're empowering publishers and users to make the decisions that are right for them. I wouldn't say that if I didn't believe it.

ASA

Give it a try first.

Thanks, ASA. We surely needed some light cast on all the assumptions that were flying about.