Google has announced its launching “interest-based” advertising as a beta test on its partner sites and on YouTube.

The ads will be matched via users browser based on the types of sites they visit and the pages they view. Google says it will use interest categories to show users more relevant text and display ads.

Google says it will allow users to select categories for ads they want to see. Users can also tell Google categories they don’t want to see ads for.

Google offers details on what it says are the three most important features of interest-based advertising.

• Transparency – We already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how we serve ads, and the information we use to show you ads. This year we will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google’s ad serving.

• Choice – We have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.

• Control – You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn’t deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), we have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.

Interest-based advertising will be introduced over the next several months in beta form, and will expand later this year.