AdChoices: by Google or Yahoo??

November 20, 2013 2:05 AM

I saw some ads online showing a lable on the right top corner with a "i" in a triagle, by moving mouse to it it shows "AdChoices". Clicking on the label brought me to: http://www.aboutads.info/choices/#completed

I need to track down an ad with such a label.
Question: Is AdChoices a service by Google or Yahoo, or what exactly is it?

posted by pack2themoon to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

The aboutads.info site is operated by the Digital Advertising Alliance, which is a consortium of online advertising and marketing trade groups. The AdChoices program is the online advertising industry's "self-regulatory program for online behavioral advertising".

Many companies, including both Google and Yahoo, are participants in the program.

Since an ad with the AdChoices marking could have come from any one of those companies, I think you're going to need some other clues in order to track down the source of a particular ad.
posted by sriracha at 4:48 AM on November 20, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks very much for the explanation!
he ads shown on the right side column on YouTube .
Can I tell it's from Google?
Thanks!
posted by pack2themoon at 7:53 AM on November 20, 2013

Best answer: Google owns YouTube. As far as I know nobody but Google is serving ads on YouTube.
posted by town of cats at 9:02 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

I found a mention of AdChoices in a weird place recently: while looking at the internet traffic analytics company Quantcast. They apparently encourage publishers to include it with their measuring code, even though there aren't really any ads in their code. Perhaps that's how you saw it?
posted by mathowie at 11:40 AM on November 21, 2013