Google to give advertisers web-tracking data

An article in today's Times describes how Google today expanded its offering to advertisers by unveiling a service (AdPlanner) which lets one track which websites target audiences are visiting.

"According to reports in the US, Google is planning to gather information about websites from a range of sources, including its own search engine but also third parties and, possibly, more traditional panels which track consumer behaviour online... One Google source suggested that there would be some overlap between the new service and another recent offering from Google called 'Trends for websites' (Ed- Google Trends, as discussed before on this blog --- here), which allows anyone to measure websites' audiences using a combination of Google search data and other information that web users have opted to share about their behaviour. Google's new tool is thought to be similar to another service called Quantcast (also discussed on this blog before --- here)... In addition, AdPlanner is expected to be free - at least to begin with."