Over the coming weeks, users will be able to click on links labeled "Why these ads?" next to advertisements served in Gmail and Google search results, the company announced in a blog post Monday. These links contain information about how and why users were targeted for a particular ad.
Users can find out why, for instance, they're suddenly being served ads for restaurants in Honolulu while they're on vacation there or why ads for North Face coats are appearing above their Gmail inboxes after running searches on "winter parkas" an hour earlier.
Users can also open up the Ads Preferences Manager to further adjust their settings, and/or opt out of personalized ads altogether.
The changes won't mean much to consumers who already understand the basics of ad targeting, but it should be helpful to those who have wondered why Google seemingly knows so much about them.