14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter will start experimenting with targeted advertising by working with several ad companies that specialize on this.
However, the social platform wants to make sure users get a choice and will be respecting Do Not Track, as well as making it easy to opt out from the Twitter settings.
Ad targeting is hardly something new on the web; everyone does it, and most people aren't even aware it's happening. Some advertisers offer a way to opt out, though a convoluted and not really convenient method, but many don't.
Twitter though, so far, only showed ads, i.e. promoted tweets, based on whom users followed on the site.
"Let’s say a local florist wants to advertise a Valentine’s Day special on Twitter. They’d prefer to show their ad to flower enthusiasts who frequent their website or subscribe to their newsletter," Twitter explained.
"To get the special offer to those people who are also on Twitter, the shop may share with us a scrambled, unreadable email address (a hash) or browser-related information (a browser cookie ID). We can then match that information to accounts in order to show them a Promoted Tweet with the Valentine’s Day deal," it added.
The social platform has always prided itself in the care it takes of user data and privacy, so it's not surprising to see that the company is doing the best it can to ensure that people have a choice in the matter.
Those who don't want targeted ads can go to their Twitter settings and uncheck the box next to "Promoted content." That's all there is to it; after that, users won't see any targeted ads.
Those who have Do Not Track enabled in their browsers don't even need to worry about opting out again from the site. Twitter was one of the first sites to openly support Do Not Track, even though, at the time, it wasn't using targeted ads.