Google TV prompting users with ‘Personalized ads update’ message

Abner Li | Mar 22 2023 - 4:09 pm PT

In recent days, Google TV has been showing a “Personalized ads update” on televisions and streaming devices.

First off, this is a disclosure and not a software update. This notification appears in Quick Settings and opens a dialog box when clicked:

When personalized ads are on, they may be based on your Google Account info and activity on Google TV and other Google products and services, such as Google Search and YouTube. This info and activity are used to personalize ads that appear in Google-owned ad spaces on Google TV and partner apps. Ads are not personalized if the age associated with the signed-in account is under 18 years old.

Your activity and Google Account info are not shared with partner apps and your activity info from these partner apps is not shared with Google.

Review and control ads personalization settings: visit g.co/adssettings
Review and control info shared between Google products: visit g.co/myactivitycontrols

As far as we can tell, there have been no actual changes or additions to Google TV settings. The message just lets you close the dialog box after reading with no further actions.

Personalized ads aren’t new to the platform and are tied to your Google Account. In November, the company introduced “My Ad Center” to let people customize their advertising by interests and brands.

Google app adding ‘Ads personalization’ shortcut with ‘Privacy & Security’ settings

Like on Android phones, Google TV lets you reset or delete your advertising ID from the Settings app > Privacy > Ads.

Anyway, naming this an “update” is particularly confusing, with many Google TV users, including Chromecast owners, seeing this message about personalized ads. It’s not clear why Google is widely alerting users about it now.