What Google think about you…

If you’ve ever browsed the web – whether to read the news, check weather or for anything else, you’ve probably seen adverts online.

Some are just set on the particular webpage – for example a webpage about gardening might have an advert for garden tools.

But most adverts are selected based on you. So if you’ve previously looked at webpages about gardening, you’ll see lots of adverts for garden tools and the like, even if you’re now on a webpage that’s nothing to do with gardening.

Sometimes this works quite well and you see adverts for things that you’re likely to be interested in… sometimes it doesn’t work so well…

Most (or at least a lot) of the adverts you see are run by Google. Companies put the advert with Google and Google decide who to show them to – based on what you’ve looked at in the past. (Contrary to what some people think, the company who placed the advert never get your details, unless you actually click on the advert and follow it up – Google just decide who to show the advert to for them.)

But did you know you can check what Google thinks you’re interested in?

It only works if you have a Google account of some kind (whether it’s for GMail, Google drive, YouTube or whatever) logged in but all you do is visit this webpage and it’ll tell you. The things it lists at the top it thinks you’re very interested in, down to ones at the bottom that it thinks you’re only a bit interested in.

You can also click on one of the interests to see why they think that about you.

For example, I’ve just checked mine and it certainly gets some of it right. I’m into books, definitely, and like watching motor racing. I’m not sure why it thinks I’m into recipes, though, and I can’t really understand what it means by being interested in credit cards. I haven’t even spent much time making sure I have one with a particularly good rate or anything.

If you find something it’s got wrong, if you like you can click on it and choose “Turn off” to make it stop thinking you’re interested in that thing, so you won’t get adverts about it any more. You don’t have to, but if you want to, it’s possible.

Anyway, if you’re curious why you get the adverts you do and what Google is basing it on, you can have a look – up to you.

A tip for hiring cars if you’re over 70
I’ve heard Dad mention that some car hire companies don’t like hiring him a car now he’s in his 70s. Different companies seem to have different limits, for some it’s 70, for some it’s 75… but it can be a bit of a pain when you want to hire a car on holiday. After all, it’s not as if you suddenly forget how to drive when you have a particular birthday!

But I heard a tip from a reader the other day – here it is:

On car hire, as a couple in our early eighties, we came up against the problem that the big companies like Hertz, Avis and the rest will not hire cars abroad to those over a certain age, usually 70 something if you approach them directly; if however you use an agent like rentalcars.com or 121carhire.com, whose claim is to hire cars to those aged 24-99, there is no problem, and the voucher comes with an older driver supplement of €0.00 per day (seriously!), and the car is frequently provided by Hertz, Avis or one of the other big companies or their subsidiaries!

I don’t know whether the prices are similar – I imagine they’re not far off, but if the main big companies simply won’t hire you a car, it’s certainly worth a look! Thanks to David and Sheila for the tip!