Internet-based advertising, or online behavioral advertising (OBA), involves tracking and analyzing your online activities to deliver personalized ads. This process happens in the background and helps businesses show you ads tailored to your interests. If you’ve ever searched for something online and then seen related ads, you’ve experienced behavioral advertising.

In a typical OBA setup, websites use “cookies,” which are small files stored in your web browser, to track your online behavior. These cookies send information back to the website’s server about your online activities. They can also remember things like your passwords and items in your shopping cart. When multiple websites are part of the same network, cookies can track your activity across different sites. For example, if you look up a travel destination on a news website, you might see ads for that destination on another site later.

While you can opt out of tracking and try to stop it by deleting cookies, there are more persistent cookies known as “zombie cookies” that can reappear after you’ve tried to remove them.

Today, personalized internet advertising is widespread, and people are becoming more aware of it. Some view this practice as an invasion of privacy since it involves collecting personal information, while others consider it harmless. For more information on how your data is used and shared, you can review our Privacy Policy.