Google is taking some new approaches to how it will be performing targeted advertising – actually, behavioral advertising. Google will be installing a tracking cookie into browsers, which will record what adsense advertisements show up in the sites that are visited. This will then categorize users into a collection of 600 categories of interests, allowing Google to know just what ads to show to who.

In fact, Google is going beyond just that. They’re also getting marketing data from the best source possible: you. Users will be able to log into Google and select areas of interest, putting themselves into these groups. It is like the lazy way out: let the users decide what advertisements they want to see. You can’t get better targeted advertising data than that!

Now, is this good or bad? Well, I’d rather not have Google watching me in some creepy Big Brother/Stalker fashion as I’m browsing around the Internet. At the same time, I guess I’d rather see an advertisement for some awesome gadget or game, as opposed to something I really could care less about, if I have to see an ad.