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It seems lately that every time I look at a video on Facebook or YouTube there is an ad from the NRA.

I am not complaining, I just thought it was strange. I never noticed before.

WildBill wrote:It seems lately that every time I look at a video on Facebook or YouTube there is an ad from the NRA.

I am not complaining, I just thought it was strange. I never noticed before.

It's the Google and Facebook data tracking at work.

I have noticed that some of the items I search on Amazon, etc. also show up on FaceBook. I never noticed on YouTube.

YouTube is owned by google. Some of the YouTube videos that are recommended to me are related to searches I've done. Kind of scary.

mojo84 wrote:YouTube is owned by google. Some of the YouTube videos that are recommended to me are related to searches I've done. Kind of scary.

I didn't know that Google bought YouTube. I have noticed other videos popping up for things other than my search. It is kind of scary.

WildBill wrote:

mojo84 wrote:YouTube is owned by google. Some of the YouTube videos that are recommended to me are related to searches I've done. Kind of scary.

I didn't know that Google bought YouTube. I have noticed other videos popping up for things other than my search. It is kind of scary.

That kind of stuff is getting very sophisticated. I've noticed that any product I look at online starts showing up as ads on the side of my FaceBook feed.....and not just general products, but specific ones. I once was looking at a Vortex scope on the Vortex website. Not 10-15 minutes later, ads for that scope were appearing on my FaceBook feed.

In techie-talk, that's called a redirect. Companies can set up ad campaigns through Google or Yahoo/Bing that serve a viewer ads based on what has been searched for or sites that have been visited. On the surface, all of the date collection is done at the ISP address level and is not supposed to contain any personally identifiable information. At least it's not available directly from within the analytics platform. But it doesn't take a whole lot to run a simple data append in order to match bits of anonymous data to personally identifiable data.

CBS' 60 Minutes did a piece a year or so ago on these data tracking companies and it opened my eyes wide. There are hundreds of companies tracking everything you do online and in many cases sharing the info so that a VERY CLEAR picture of who you are and what you're interested in can be assembled. I am amazed whenever I look at my sister's computer to see how targeted literally every sidebar ad and popup and etc. ad junk is VERY SPECIFIC to her in some unsettling way.

Y'all need to go to Abine.com and get set-up on at least your browsers with Blur, which originally was called DoNotTrackMe. It blocks all those trackers in the background and can also do nice things like let you set-up masked emails. For free. I also have a Premium account with them where I've gotten masked phone numbers as well--if someone abuses the telno I give them, I just tell Abine to stop forwarding their calls...

Here's a thread where I shared a link so you can see what info Google has on you. viewtopic.php?f=83&t=76956&hilit=google+privacy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My eyes were opened a while back when I was looking for a dark purple long sleeve button up shirt size 2x. Within minutes I started seeing all these ads for stores that sell exactly what I was looking for and they even had pictures of the shirts.

Just yesterday I went through my web history and based solely on that, I could see how someone could try to make a case for me being a rightwing conservative extremist gun nut.

I meant to add that at best a data append will only get you about a 20% match back. And that's if you have a large enough data set on both ends. As far as selling the data, most of what you can buy as a marketer is junk. So most are good with building their own lists and data. And those lists never get sold or traded.

I do purchase items online and do many searches to research things before I make a purchase. What I find interesting is seeing ads for something I've already purchased. Why would I want to purchase another one?

TexasCajun wrote:As far as selling the data, most of what you can buy as a marketer is junk. So most are good with building their own lists and data. And those lists never get sold or traded.

Perhaps this belief gives you comfort, but I don't trust it for one second, have experience suggesting the opposite, and will work to keep my private life private.

There are a lot of people who simply don't care, and maybe even LIKE that their lives are open books. God love 'em, just like those that buy high and sell low. We need those people.

This really isn't very complex in terms of what can be done with digital advertising. It's called retargeting and is simply a cookie that is placed in your browser when you looked at a product on a company website. You're then served an ad for the same product or company as you go about your other business. If you want it to disappear you can erase your cookies or disable cookies.

What's scary is mobile ads that are served for a variety of reasons (location, behavior, demographic data) and they can actually track your in store transaction by use of credit card data tied to your profiles from a third party data collection company.

They can use this to accurately get a picture of your purchase behavior Vs. a control group that was not shown the ad.

TomsTXCHL wrote:

TexasCajun wrote:As far as selling the data, most of what you can buy as a marketer is junk. So most are good with building their own lists and data. And those lists never get sold or traded.

Perhaps this belief gives you comfort, but I don't trust it for one second, have experience suggesting the opposite, and will work to keep my private life private.

There are a lot of people who simply don't care, and maybe even LIKE that their lives are open books. God love 'em, just like those that buy high and sell low. We need those people.

I agree with you, but what you are stating is virtually impossible. You would have to not have any credit or debit cards, transact only in cash, no mortgage, not buy any automobiles, not be a member of any reward programs, not have a driver license, not have a cell phone, no internet purchases...the list goes on and on.

TVGuy wrote:

TomsTXCHL wrote:

TexasCajun wrote:As far as selling the data, most of what you can buy as a marketer is junk. So most are good with building their own lists and data. And those lists never get sold or traded.

Perhaps this belief gives you comfort, but I don't trust it for one second, have experience suggesting the opposite, and will work to keep my private life private.

There are a lot of people who simply don't care, and maybe even LIKE that their lives are open books. God love 'em, just like those that buy high and sell low. We need those people.

I agree with you, but what you are stating is virtually impossible. You would have to not have any credit or debit cards, transact only in cash, no mortgage, not buy any automobiles, not be a member of any reward programs, not have a driver license, not have a cell phone, no internet purchases...the list goes on and on.

While it's true that a person may never be able to completely eradicate all evidence of online activities, there are ways to minimize your profile such that you become like the proverbial "needle in a haystack".

And while having recently read the Enemies Trilogy (starting with Foreign & Domestic) has no doubt inflamed my natural paranoia, that doesn't mean no one's out to get me!