You can decide if and how your online interests are used for advertising. Your choice may depend on how much you value more relevant ads, your comfort with
ad-company privacy practices and your willingness to change your browser settings or use browser add-ons to implement your choice.
PrivacyChoice gathers opt-out cookies from scores of ad delivery companies, which tell them not to use your information to target advertising. With our Firefox add-on, those cookies are automatically kept in place and up to date, even if you clear your cookies from time to time.
The Network Advertising Initiative is a group of leading ad-delivery companies. They provide an opt-out page that includes all of their members and a Firefox add-on that protects preferences.
Visit the NAI Opt-out Page
You can reduce the ability of companies to track your behavior and interests online by changing your browser settings or downloading add-on software. This approach blocks tracking more directly, and does not rely on ad company opt-out cookies.
Here are some of the most popular choices:
Browser privacy settings
You can manually change your browser settings to refuse cookies from any company other than the site you are visiting, or to ask permission each time a company wants to set a new one.
Learn more about your browser's privacy settings
Ghostery
This Firefox add-on shows you when third-party code (called Javascript) is used on a page you are viewing, which may include ad-delivery companies. You can set it to block this code from operating on your computer.
Download Ghostery from Mozilla.org
Ad-block Plus
This Firefox add-on uses a large list of ad-delivery domains to prevent those third parties from interacting with your computer while you are visiting websites.
Download Ad-block Plus from Mozilla.org
Better Privacy
This Firefox add-on allows you to view, delete and block the use of "Flash cookies," which are a method of tracking used by some ad-delivery companies. Flash cookies are difficult to find and control through normal browser controls.
Download Better Privacy from Mozilla.org