These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hours each way? The ads I always see just never seem that smart given the terabytes of data that everyone supposedly has on me. They really just seem to reflect my search history.
I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it.<p>I've always known this is happening and previously I didn't care because you figure if you are going to get advertised to, why not make it relevant, right? Well, it's more complex than that, here are the problems I have with this kind of data tracking:<p>1. Data can we used against you in ways you might not understand or have considered.
2. It's a waste of money and resources. Think of all the extra bandwidth, server space, human time, that is spent on just trying to sell people more shit.
3. I don't like the idea of people making money off my data without my knowledge.
4. Targeted ads might distract me and cause me to waste extra time online.<p>Bottom line -- I have a moral objection to the whole idea of it, and will do everything I can do stop it.
Michael Bazzell is an expert on (both sides of) Open Source Intelligence (OSINT: data collected from publicly available sources).<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Bazzell/e/B007GNUI92/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Bazzell/e/B007GNUI92/</a><p>He maintains a virtual machine "pre-configured for online investigators" and a podcast.<p><a href="https://inteltechniques.com/buscador/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://inteltechniques.com/buscador/index.html</a>
>start with this neat and medium-scary site, which our friends at Gizmodo flagged, that shows you everything your browser knows about you the second you open it. (clickclickclick.click)<p>"Subject has entered the website. Subject has 4 cores..." followed by a bunch of notes about my mouse moving around, or me making the window inactive.<p>Hardly terrifying.
Have I been pwned[0] is missing from this list, and is an awesome tool to check whether some of your information have leaked in the past.<p>Passwords are, in my opinion, way more valuable than browser history.<p>[0]: <a href="https://haveibeenpwned.com/" rel="nofollow">https://haveibeenpwned.com/</a>
Is the issue ad targeting, or data collection?<p>For me it's the latter. This is what Google thinks I like: <a href="http://imgur.com/a/g8Q7l" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/a/g8Q7l</a> - reasonably accurate, and I don't care if it's public or used for targeting non-intrusive ads. I like those topics, I buy things, go ahead and show me your products.<p>My objection is over the data used to learn those interests. I don't want Google tracking my search and page views across the internet, I don't want my credit card company tracking my purchase history, and I certainly don't want my ISP/phone provider tracking my "metadata".<p>I feel like this article glossed over that aspect. Google's "Ad Personalization" page controls what Google uses, not what it knows. In this age of state, corporate, and foreign surveillance/hacking, I'm far more concerned about the latter.
Why is targeted advertising acceptable? it is not ok for a seller to stalk potential buyers.<p>I get that everyone has accepted this as a "fact of life" but consider how TV advertising was done. The advertisement is tailored to the show you are watching and the time of day.<p>In other words, if I'm on a tech blog, advertise to me tech products, if I'm reading a cooking recipe, advertise kitchenware,grocery delivery and the like.<p>As a consumer, I am more likely to remember an advertised product if the AD is within the context of the web page I'm visiting.<p>Target pages not users! not even as precise as I mentioned above but statistical approximations can be made, much like with TV ads (for example, "ycombinator visitors are likely to buy artisnal cookware compared to people visiting nytimes" )<p>The problem at the end of the day is that users in general don't like to be tracked. some may sacrfice the privacy for the convenince but most will prefer if the sacrifice wasn't neccesary.<p>I think better advertising solutions are what is needed. It is unfortunate how much money is instead spent on technology to stalk users, as if using a complex computer system makes it more accpetable or ethical.
Anecdote: I'm having dinner last night with a couple at their house and I'm advising one of them about getting an appliance for her partner - so we browse some options on her cellphone together and find something suitable.<p>Perhaps 30 minutes later, her partner was on his cellphone and gets an ad for the same appliance, he let us know because it was something he had been wanting. They were both on the same IP address via the router. While they initially had a good laugh, it was supposed to be a surprise.<p>It really did annoy me and when I explained what was happening they found it equally amusing and frightening. I am pretty sure both of them went to bed that night worried that the other was going to be getting ads for things they might be looking at on the internet.
I generally consider targeted ads to be relatively harmless, with one major recent exception:<p>I'm starting to shop for an engagement ring, but since I live with my GF I have to do online research in Incognito mode so ads don't ruin what I hope to be a surprise someday.<p>File this under "things peeps didn't have to worry about 10-15 years ago"
This site also goes into a lot of detail about the digital tracks you leave online, and how to minimize them: <a href="https://myshadow.org/" rel="nofollow">https://myshadow.org/</a>
<p><pre><code> Please sign in to see what
the internet knows about
you.
</code></pre>
Uh, actually, that's what I tell the internet about myself, for the most part.<p>It doesn't really impress me when I approach the internet and introduce myself by name. Of course the internet is going to remember me, if I permit my cookies and request parameters and IP address linger.<p>Much more interesting is when the internet makes my identity without my having volunteered anything.<p>Oh well.
" The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. "<p>Advertising isn't just about what you really need, but also about what you will need more, or again, or earlier, because the commercial impressed the product need in your head. Neuromarketing is a science nowadays, and is pretty scary to me.<p>Some interesting content on the topic here.
<a href="http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/home" rel="nofollow">http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/home</a>
It seems so strange to me that there is such an ever increasing push to get people to click ads when I can't tell you a single person I know that ever actually clicks one on purpose. If I see an ad for something I just search it instead because I don't trust ads..<p>Except for one time years ago when I saw an ad on my own site for a drawing tablet and getting my account suspended for cheating even though I actually bought the tablet. Decided then I'm never gonna do ads on any of my sites.<p>I think the advertisers care more about about manipulating companies to buy ads than actually increasing that companies sales.
Here's my "completely not ergonomic but entirely satisfying if silent protest is your thing" solution:<p>- NoScript [0], First defence. Breaks 30% of sites, but you can selectively enable local scripts to ameliorate that.<p>- Self-Destructing Cookies [1], We all need cookies for logging in to things and etc..., but once we've closed the tab, we shouldn't have to keep those cookies with us. This means you have to log-in more often, but I prefer that. Prevents people from seeing your email/facebook/etc... when you're still logged in.<p>- uBlock Origin [2], You'll occasionally need to allow scripts you don't like because they're required for the proper presentation of the website. In those cases, you can depend on uBlock to get rid of awful trackers.<p>- HTTPSEverywhere [3], Because snoopers aren't always outside your network.<p>- DuckDuckGo as default search engine [4] and not-Google Chrome as your default browser, At the very least, you're not supporting the worst privacy offender on the net.<p>- Non-ad-supported/privacy-oriented service. In the paid category (recommended), I suggest mailbox.org, due to their track record and founding principles. In the free(-ish) category, ProtonMail.ch and tutanota.com.<p>- Clear Cookies/History on Browser Exit<p>- Forbid Third-Party Cookies<p>- And because I believe in magical faeries, DoNotTrack set to True<p>[0] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/?src=search" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/?src...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing-cookies/?src=ss" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destruct...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/?src=ss" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywhere/?src=ss" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywh...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://duckduckgo.com" rel="nofollow">https://duckduckgo.com</a>