On January 25th, Google updated its advertising settings to allow more user control over the ads that appear on websites across the internet. 

“The new features give consumers more control over what types of ads they see,” said principal analyst at Tirias Research Paul Teich. These features include the ability to disable reminder ads, which are advertisements from visited websites that remind the consumer to come back and buy products.

“We plan to expand this tool to control ads on YouTube, Search, and Gmail,” John Krafcik, head of data privacy and transparency at Google, said in a blog post.

The change will allow these ads to be muted for 90 days, despite the fact that these ads would typically stop after a month. They have also made changes to the “Mute This Ad” setting, a setting from 2012 allowing users to turn off an advertisement they do not want to see. The new system will mute the ad or company on all devices.

Josh Crandall, the principal analyst at Netpop Research, said, “Google is slowly changing the rules to protect the long-term strength of online advertising.”