Google Breaks Down Users By Parental Status, Knows If You're a Parent or Not
So Google already knows you better than your neighbor does, as it can deduce your age, gender and interests based solely on your browsing behavior. On top of that Google knows what browser, phone, and operating system you use, something maybe not even your own parent does.
However a newly discovered feature from our team shows that Google can also deduce whether or not you are a parent yourself:
The Adwords screenshot above breaks down performance by parental status, declaring a user as either “Parent” or “Not a Parent”.
A third category of unknown makes up just under 27% of the total, so Google is confident enough to declare a user a parent or not on nearly 3 out of 4 of its visitors.
How they can deduce this information based off one’s browsing history is as good as anyone’s guess.
Sure there may be the more obvious giveaways, e.g. if people are searching for “what to get my 5 year old for his birthday” or “how to deal with my obnoxious teenager” they can be placed in the “Parent” category.
However unlike Facebook where people volunteer this information freely, the methods Google uses can only be based on search/browsing behavior–not counting the 19 people who fill out their information on Google+.
It’ll be interesting to see how much further this breakdown goes in the future, relationship status? Ethnicity?
It wouldn’t be far fetched to imagine being able down the line to target a user based on whether they’re a Democrat or Republican, if they’re overweight/obese or not, or if they prefer Coke or Pepsi.
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