Google announces new measures to protect user privacy in web browsing

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google said Tuesday that it is taking new steps to allow users to have greater control of their Chrome browser to enhance protection of their privacy.

"Our experience shows that people prefer ads that are personalized to their needs and interests," Google Engineering Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan said at the annual developer conference Google I/O held at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Northern California, which is expected to draw more than 7,000 participants.

New improvement will be made to cookies control in Chrome to better protect user privacy and choice on the web by making it easier to block or clear cookies used in a third-party context, with minimal disruption to cookies used in a first-party context, said Raghavan.

Google will limit advertisers from undue tracking of users' browsing activities online and require ads to offer transparency, choice and control, he said.

"Ad-supported Internet is at risk if digital advertising practices don't evolve to reflect people's changing expectations around how data is collected and used," he said.

Chrome will more aggressively restrict fingerprinting across the web and give greater freedom to users to decide how to control the use of their data for personalized advertising, he said.

Google said it is committing to a new level of ads transparency with a new open-source browser extension, which will display for users information about different intermediaries involved in targeting a given Google ad, such as those between the advertiser and publisher.

It promises to find additional ways to make it even easier for users to access such information in the future.

"All of the changes ... represent an important step in ensuring that the ad-supported web provides people with access to high-quality content, while protecting their privacy," Raghavan said.