this is how you use the new settings

Google has added Privacy Sandbox features to the Chrome web browser. This is what you can benefit from and how to use the new settings.

Privacy Sandbox in Chrome: new settings

Google has introduced something new for your web browser: Privacy Sandbox. This allows advertisers to know less about you while still offering personalized ads.

Google is against advertisers collecting a large amount of personal information via cookies for personalized advertising. Instead, the company now offers APIs that allow advertisers to show relevant ads without collecting unnecessary data.

By 2024, Google will completely abolish the use of third-party cookies in Chrome. So it’s up to advertisers to support these new APIs in order to continue sending targeted ads to Chrome users.

These APIs are now available to advertisers and developers. Although this might not be that exciting for you as a user, the new options within Chrome are quite nice.

Chrome’s new settings

The new settings for Chrome can be found in the settings menu under ‘Privacy & security’ and then ‘Ad privacy’.

At the top, you will see the option ‘Advertising Topics‘. Here you can choose whether to allow ads based on your recent browsing history. On this page, you will also find the option to block topics for which you do not want to see advertisements. You can only block a topic if you have already seen advertisements for it.

Below that, it says ‘Site Suggested Ads‘. Here you will see a slider if you do not like a website you have visited to display ads that follow you. You can also choose to block specific websites here, so that, for example, you are not followed everywhere by that one strange webshop that you only looked at out of curiosity.

And then you will find ‘Ad Measurement‘ among the settings. Here you indicate whether an advertiser or website can see how the advertisement is performing, such as the time you viewed it and whether you clicked on it. This information is essential for advertisers, but you are free not to share it.

Still seeing personalized ads?

If you are still receiving personalized advertisements despite these settings, it may be due to your cookie settings. In the settings, under ‘Privacy & security’, you can tap on ‘Third-party cookies’. There you can choose to completely block third-party cookies.

Not seeing the options?

To access the new options, you’ll need to update Google Chrome first. If you have the latest version of the app and still don’t see the options described above, it is possible that you are one of the three percent of users who will receive this update later as part of a test.

More Chrome tips

Want to get even more out of Chrome? We’ve listed 15 Chrome functions that you probably don’t know about yet. We also have some extra Chrome tricks for you.