Google Ads is watching me! LOL

[Carol]

This is not a complaint...I'm more amused than anything else.

Looks like GoogleAds not only looks at tracking cookies, they also look at the streams in MSN Messenger and possibly other IM clients.

I was working via MSN with a client in Mexico, and surfing around MT while my client ran a battery of tests. I couldn't help but notice, shortly after we started up our conversation, in Spanish, my GoogleAds on MT also switched over to Spanish, and on the topic of conversation: phone calls.

My client was making llamadas pruebas, which is the Spanish term for test calls...and I receive an ad offering "llamadas a Mexico ilimitadas" (unlimited calls to Mexico), and urging me to prueba gratis...which means "try it for free".

Don't have an issue with this at all, I know it helps keep the lights on here, and I'm all for that. Still....google sees all! :lol:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Wow. As far as I know, it shouldn't be picking up anything other than what's directly funneled thru MT. Though there might be some connection between the different services, cross referenced to the IP. If you block the cookies or run an adblocker they pretty much vanish. I'm too lazy to put in the "break the page if ads don't show" code. Too much code hacking involved.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Google collects a ton of data and no one actually knowe jsut how many tons or what they are going to do with all of it.

 

[Shuto]

The WSJ recently ran a series on all of the tracking going on. Here are a few excerpts, comments, and links. Access may require a subscription.

link



The largest U.S. websites are installing new and intrusive consumer-tracking technologies on the computers of people visiting their sites—in some cases, more than 100 tracking tools at a time—a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
The tracking files represent the leading edge of a lightly regulated, emerging industry of data-gatherers who are in effect establishing a new business model for the Internet: one based on intensive surveillance of people to sell data about, and predictions of, their interests and activities, in real time.


I discovered that there are a whole category of super cookies that are not stored with the usual cookies and don't get deleted. Firefox has an add on called BetterPrivacy that deals with them. It cleaned up a bunch from my machine that I had no clue even existed. I have it set up so that I approve of all cookies before they get installed and I disapprove of most, at least that's what I thought I was doing.



link

You may not know a company called [x+1] Inc., but it may well know a lot about you.

From a single click on a web site, [x+1] correctly identified Carrie Isaac as a young Colorado Springs parent who lives on about $50,000 a year, shops at Wal-Mart and rents kids' videos. The company deduced that Paul Boulifard, a Nashville architect, is childless, likes to travel and buys used cars. And [x+1] determined that Thomas Burney, a Colorado building contractor, is a skier with a college degree and looks like he has good credit.

They didn't get every fact correct, but the did remarkably well and they did this with only a click on a website.

The thing that bothers me about all of this is that it is done surreptitiously. I don't mind sharing some info but I want to know about it and control who gets it. I realize that is just an ideal but I still try to get control over my identity whenever I can.

Do you think wrapping my laptop in tinfoil will help?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

lol.

No, use Firefox, get AdBlock Plus, and install No-Script. You can surf mostly ad-free and tracking free, though alot of sites will break as they have added 'if ad dont run, break site' code.

Also, I'll be removing most of the ads for supporting members once I do the switch to vB4, most likely in October.