From whether you have children to education level and income... LINE’s ad settings stir controversy as “scary”; we asked LINE Yahoo about its intent

LINE ad settings drew backlash after users noticed inferred traits like children, education, job, and income were being used by default for ad targeting.

LINE Yahoo said it does not use private chats, and instead machine-processes usage history and registered data to infer ad attributes.

The company said item-by-item opt-outs will be available from August 2025, highlighting privacy concerns and confusing settings.

The issue raised broader questions about how visible and controllable ad personalization is inside the LINE app.