Now THIS is un-nerving-- Beware of what you type...

[Roger Feeley]

Marketing types spend a lot of time and money harvesting data from everything we do online and they still get it wrong. Some years ago, I looked into an infrared thermometer for the kitchen. I thought why not and bought a Fluke at my local Graingers. For over a year, I was getting targeted ads for infrared thermometers of all brands (because I looked for one once). Since then, I've noticed that the targeted ads seem to be for things I just bought which strikes me as a huge waste of time and money. It took years to get off of a an email list for pet supplies. I kept explaining the our dog died. I finally had to threaten to sue the company.

What I would love to see is a service where I can subscribe to ads. Say I want to buy a matress this weekend. I would go online and reveal that I intend to buy a mattress this weekend and marketers could do their thing. I can look at the ads or not as I see fit but at least I would be receiving ads for things I want in the future and not for things I've bought or no longer have an interest in. Such information provided by me and verified by purchases should have real value and this imaginary service should be paying me for providing my intent.

[John C Cox]

I have experienced similar including ads that "randomly" show up all over the place after phone calls I have had where I talked about a particular subject for a while....

There's a lot going on in these fancy super phone devices that happens under the hood that is not transparent to us.... And let's face it... If you have the money to pay for the data - somebody is going to figure out how to get it.

[Jim Becker]

Ads like that come from tracking technology within the browser, not because the site you visited is giving away the data. There are browser add-ins that will help you control the ad trackers without compromising things that are needed to operate effectively with the sites you visit.

[Lee DeRaud]

Marketing types spend a lot of time and money harvesting data from everything we do online and they still get it wrong. Some years ago, I looked into an infrared thermometer for the kitchen. I thought why not and bought a Fluke at my local Graingers. For over a year, I was getting targeted ads for infrared thermometers of all brands (because I looked for one once). Since then, I've noticed that the targeted ads seem to be for things I just bought which strikes me as a huge waste of time and money.

The one I never understand is getting a 'targeted' ad on Facebook from Amazon for something I just bought...on Amazon.

Of course, the "huge waste of time and money" award goes to the dozens of Medicare-related companies that sent snail mail ads to my address intended for my ex-wife, who turned 65 last year. Thing is, she moved out in 1986 and has had five or six different addresses since then, which I suspect are also getting bombarded by the same ads. Even worse, their "six degrees" connection algorithms occasionally result in me getting spam addressed to her current husband, who will turn 65 later this year. I can hardly wait.

[Yonak Hawkins]

For your information and complete scrutiny, a friend sent me this : https://project.wnyc.org/privacy-paradox/ recently for learning about personal security. I realize this seems like an enigma, which is why I prefaced it for your scrutiny.

[Curt Harms]

The problem is, how in the world can you avoid it short of unplugging completely?

I find that Firefox with NoScript & Ublock Origin help quite a bit. I resized my cache from the default 350 MB. to 35 MB. so there should be less to pick through at any one time. If sites that really have no need for my email address but still require one, they get something like"first.name@someisp.com". It takes some time with NoScript to get it so it allows what's required for the site to work but blocks google stuff, facebook, twitter etc. etc. There's also a way to block anything from doubleclick and others like it.

[Dave Lehnert]

I can go to a web site and look at hammers. Right away I get email advertising that same hammer from the same website on my Yahoo address.

[Mark Blatter]

An email ad from a company selling tools, one of which is a deburring tool, I might consider a coincidence. But a specific deburring tool ad? Nope.

I'm bringing this back because it happened again.

Yesterday I got online to my bank. Secured connection, https, padlock, etc, to order a box of checks.
The bank's site transferred me to the site selling the checks, also a secured connection.
I ordered a box of checks, logged off, closed the browser.

this morning I get this:
Attachment 355560

I have NEVER in my life gotten a 'checks' advertisement. This is not coincidence, this is a direct result of me buying checks, on supposedly secure websites!
HOW DID THIS PLACE KNOW THIS AND GET MY EMAIL ADDRESS?? Actually the answer is easy
Note that I didn't google anything. I opened my bank bookmark, logged in, clicked 'other services', clicked 'buy checks', and bought checks.

So much for 'secure' websites.

Spammers picking up keywords from public forums such as this is one thing, but companies freely passing around info I consider private from 'secure' connections is ridiculous...

Don't automatically trust your bank or the company you bought checks from. Banks sell a great deal of info and like many other industries, check printers operate under multiple names.

[Stewie Simpson]

What about the CIA. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/w...king.html?_r=0

[Lee DeRaud]

What about the CIA. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/w...king.html?_r=0

Well, at least that explains how WikiLeaks got hold of my Amazon wish list...

[Patrick Walsh]

I dont know folks, sure feels like this country is spinning off its tracks as of late at a rapid rate.

I'm no doomsday theorist and im sure not trading my shop in for a bunker full of munitions and canned food and bottled water but things are getting scary aroud here fast.

I did just purchase a smart TV. Im pretty sure its already impossible to purchase antv without smart technology. If not now soon enough it will be then what. Spying on me through my tv may seem like not a big deal now as i have nothing to hide. But what happens when doing so becomes so run of the mill and the hacker jerk next door that is also a creep starts watching your wife or kids. Gid knows were this stuff could lead ten twenty years down the road.

the oroblem with humans is we are largley instant gratification seekers and we rarely think about the long term. Ok we try and think about the long term some of us better at it than others. Most of what we do is directed at today and tomorrow not ten years from now. This crap has the real pottential to spin way out of control imop.

Just more motivation to move to the county and live off the grid.

[John McClanahan]

Just be glad it's for CNC tooling and not for hot Russian single girls!

[Brian Tymchak]

Even worse, their "six degrees" connection algorithms occasionally result in me getting spam addressed to her current husband, who will turn 65 later this year.

Yea, this one amuses me every once in a while, when I get mail from medical service providers for my mother (passed in 1998) and my father (passed in 2007), and then lawn service advertisements for my somewhat dead beat brother who ostracised himself from the family 35 years ago. None of these people have ever been associated with my address.

[Alex Snyder]

I work for a company that touches at least 3/4 of all the car deals that happen in the United States. In some cases our software, or properties, power 100% of every single aspect of the sale. We also help spend $$$ billions of advertising revenue within our own ad networks digitally and within our traditional media properties. If you visit one of our sites or even an affiliate within our ad network (hundreds of thousands of sites) some information is revealed to us. We then try to use that information to link you to other information we might have in our database. The sole purpose of this is to better target you with better advertising.

If you have okay'd an app to use your Facebook information, or logged into a forum that hosts advertising , chances are a decent marketing agency can figure out who you are. On top of that companies like Equifax sell information that helps refine databases further. For example, in our case, your *fresh* (we've never seen it before) IP address hit a car shopping website and spent a little time looking at pickup trucks. We logged a cookie on your browser and now you see pickup truck ads following you around the Internet. Our cookie keeps tabs on which sites you visited, so when you come back we then check to see which of our affiliates you visited. We get a little more refined. It might be that you hit enough of our "in-network" sites that we have enough data to work with a credit agency to better gauge what kind of buyer you are. We begin to target you with ads a bit deeper; maybe even do some sophisticated emailing.... like you're seeing in this example.

That's about as far as we go with things. There might be other agencies that go a little farther

[Pat Barry]

I dont know folks, sure feels like this country is spinning off its tracks as of late at a rapid rate.

I'm no doomsday theorist and im sure not trading my shop in for a bunker full of munitions and canned food and bottled water but things are getting scary aroud here fast.

I did just purchase a smart TV. Im pretty sure its already impossible to purchase antv without smart technology. If not now soon enough it will be then what. Spying on me through my tv may seem like not a big deal now as i have nothing to hide. But what happens when doing so becomes so run of the mill and the hacker jerk next door that is also a creep starts watching your wife or kids. Gid knows were this stuff could lead ten twenty years down the road.

the oroblem with humans is we are largley instant gratification seekers and we rarely think about the long term. Ok we try and think about the long term some of us better at it than others. Most of what we do is directed at today and tomorrow not ten years from now. This crap has the real pottential to spin way out of control imop.

Just more motivation to move to the county and live off the grid.

I'm sure you'll be real safe there - good luck