Advertising keeps Google and many of the websites and services that you use free of charge. We work hard to make sure that ads are safe, unobtrusive and as relevant as possible. For example, you won’t see pop-up ads on Google, and we terminate the accounts of hundreds of thousands of publishers and advertisers that violate our policies each year – including ads containing malware, ads for counterfeit goods or ads that attempt to misuse your personal information.

How Google uses cookies in advertising




Our advertising cookies

To help our partners manage their advertising and websites, we offer many products, including AdSense, AdWords, Google Analytics and a range of DoubleClick-branded services. When you visit a page or see an ad that uses one of these products, either on Google services or on other sites and apps, various cookies may be sent to your browser.



How you can control advertising cookies

You can use Ads Settings to manage the Google ads that you see and opt out of Ads Personalisation. Even if you opt out of Ads Personalisation, you may still see ads based on factors such as your general location derived from your IP address, your browser type and your search terms.

You can also manage many companies’ cookies used for online advertising via the consumer choice tools created under self-regulation programmes in many countries, such as the US-based choices page or the EU-based Your Online Choices.

Finally, you can manage cookies in your web browser.

Other technologies used in advertising




Advertising identifiers for mobile apps


To opt out of personalised ads in apps on your mobile device, follow the instructions below.


    1. A separate app called Google Settings
  2. Tap Ads
  3. Switch on Opt out of interest-based ads


Devices with iOS use Apple’s Advertising Identifier. To find out more about your choices for use of this identifier, visit the Settings app on your device.

What determines the ads by Google that I see?

Many decisions are made to determine which ad you see.


Sometimes the ad you see is based on the context of a page. If you're looking at a page of gardening tips, you might see ads for gardening equipment.

Sometimes you might also see an ad on the web that’s based on your app activity or activity on Google services; an in-app ad that’s based on your web activity or an ad based on your activity on another device.

Sometimes the ad you see on a page is served by Google but selected by another company. For example, you might have registered with a newspaper website. From information that you've given the newspaper, it can make decisions about which ads to show you, and it can use Google’s ad serving products to deliver those ads.

You may also see ads on Google products and services, including Search, Gmail and YouTube, based on information, such as your email address, that you provided to advertisers and the advertisers then shared with Google.

Why am I seeing ads by Google for products that I've viewed?

You may see ads for products you previously viewed. Let’s suppose that you visit a website that sells golf clubs, but you don't buy those clubs on your first visit. The website owner might want to encourage you to return and complete your purchase. Google offers services that let website operators target their ads to people who visited their pages.



Your visit to the golfing site may also be used by Google to show you personalised ads when you later search for golf clubs on Google.


Learn more about Google ads.