In a blog post (July 3rd), the social networking site announced they are "experimenting with new ways to tailor ads" to make them "more useful to our users in the United States." With a few simple clicks, you can stop them from doing that to your account.

The goal according to Twitter is not to increase the amount of ads users see, but to provide those that may be of more interest to them. In order to do that, they need to know what you're into. To do that they need to know what websites, online stores, etc. you visit regularly. How they want to go about doing that is by dropping a little "cookie" into your browser that will relay that info back to them even after you've logged off your account.

To stop that from happening (if you want to), is pretty simple. First off, log into your account, then click the little gear symbol next to the search box. From the drop-down menu, select "Settings".

Twitter Settings Menu
(Ryan O'Bryan Twitter)
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This will take you to your general settings where you can change your user name and e-mail address, reset your password, etc., etc. Scroll down to the "Personalization" and "Promoted content" near the bottom of the list. Chances are the boxes next to each have green check marks in them, even though you may not have ever put them there. Simply uncheck them, and click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the menu.

Twitter Settings
(Ryan O'Bryan Twitter)
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My browser (Google Chrome) did not have this particular feature (that I'm aware of anyway), however some browsers  have a "Do Not Track" option you can enable in the Settings options. In the event yours is one that does, and you have it enabled, you'll see a "Do Not Track" option appear between the two settings pictured above. If that doesn't already have a green check mark in it, click it until it does. Again, whatever changes you make to your settings won't take effect until you click that "Save Changes" button at the bottom, so make sure you do that.

Happy tweeting!

[Source: Gawker / Twitter Blog]

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