Escaping ad server targeting

Whenever a Basic (or Plus) user hits a page that serves ads, their demographics are sent to the ad server to help ad targeting. (This doesn't happen for Paid or Permanent users.) If you don't want to be targeted by your demographics, then we recommend you edit/remove the following settings from your profile:


 * Gender: It will send your gender if available; set your gender to "Unspecified".


 * Birthday: It will send your age if available and "Do not display" has not been selected; set your birthday month, day and year to blank and and select "Do not display".


 * Country: It will send your country if available and "Show your location to other users" is checked; set your Country to "Pick a country", or uncheck "Show your location to other users". It's probably advisable to take away your ZIP code, state, city, and time zone while you're at it, although currently I don't think these get sent unless they're included with the country property. (Can anyone confirm/deny that?)


 * Interests: It will send "notable" interests, currently defined as your 150 most popular interests; leave your interests blank or put "no lj ads" or things to that effect there only.

If you want to keep this information in your profile for others to see, move it to the "Bio" section. Doing this will remove you from search results and interest listings asking for those characteristics, but it will also weaken ad targeting.

The ad server will also receive the text of public entries. Even if there are no ads on your journal for the ad server to need targetting for, if your public entry shows up on the friends page of a Plus user it could be used for ad targetting, even for Paid and Permanent users. [http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads/6304.html?thread=926368#t926368 For ads between entries, it targets the text of the entry above the ad if it's public. Otherwise, it target the text of the first public entry.]

If you are concerned about your content being used for ad targetting, do not make public posts. Consider using the newpost_minsecurity console command.