Global advertisers have been licking their chops and waiting for this day, as Google looks to profit from companies that are willing to pay a premium to reach their target audiences.

The concept is simple. Website visitations will be tracked by Google who will drop a temporary ID or cookie onto your computer browser thus allowing advertisers to tailor ads to the types of products and services that relate to the sites you have visited. The move is somewhat controversial, especially for those concerned by the increasing reach of the 'big brother' syndrome and the continued loss of individual privacy.

The new beta service, which is purported to reach 80 percent of the world's online traffic, is really an extension of the company's contextual ads —GoogleAds and WordAds— which already makes the Mountain View based operation billions each month relating banners and XXL scroll over ads which link to the editorial content on the page.

With advertising revenues being slashed across the media board due to the harsh recession, funds for advertising continue to been directed towards streams that potentially provide the biggest return, and the move is likely to give a bigger bang for the buck, at least that is what Google and its advertisers are hoping.

For fear of a backlash, Google says will not track visits to websites deemed as too sensitive, which includes all the juicy stuff like finance, politics, religion, health, sexual orientation or pornography— so Google could be missing out on some significant revenues. The embedded cookie is dedicated to one specific browser, and is not attached to users' Google accounts such as email or documents that contain a user's name, address or personal information.

Google have not identified which advertisers or agencies would be the first in line to join the test service, but have said it would expand the reach in the next few months to include the entire AdSense and AdWords network by year end.

For those that are a little more paranoid, the service does have an opt-out option for those that wish to surf under the radar, as it were, essentially allowing to turn the cookies off. This maybe useful for those not wishing leave a trail of tell-tale 'crumbs' of their viewing habits. 

Personally, I cringe at the likelihood of some of the content of the ads potentially popping up on my monitor. Indeed, the 'opt-out' scenario may be advisable, particularly for those of us that share the same computer, the cookies, after all, are linked to the machine, and not to the individual.