Online ads targeting your Internet history?

When visiting some web sites, especially those newspaper sites in my case, the ads around the main content are very closely tailored to my previous Internet history. Although it is not embarrassing yet, I can see a scenario that an awkward ads showing up besides an article I try to show during a presentation (my of my rules on presentation is to only show screen shots, not the web sites directly).

Anyway, I finally decided to do something about it.  It turns out that most of these ads are somewhat linked to Google, who makes this a quite easy and painless process.  All you need is to go to Google's ads setting page, and opt out both Google ads and other web services who use Google's ads server.

You may also stop Google from tracking your web history (a separate process from the ads).

Thanks the following web sites for providing above tips:

Stop Google from tracking your search history

I'm Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web

Why do ads follow me around the web?