How did they know my email address

[rapidfyre]

I visited the Lighting Direct website and added a product to my basket, but decided not to proceed. A short while later I received an email asking if they could help me to complete my order. Given that I've never bought anything from them before, and didn't give them any personal information, how did they get my email address?

I find this sort of thing sinister and very off-putting.

Are you using chrome and logged into gmail? I’ve had that happen before.

Cookies 😀

Google sees all.

I recommend using the search engine DuckDuckGo rather than google.

I spoke to my neighbour, outside, yesterday about a random piece of machinery. When I looked at Amazon this morning and they had that very piece of machinery on the recommended for you page . I hadn't googled it or anything, she brought the subject up out of the blue

the sharing/selling of data, metadata and computer algorithms.
Your mobile is transmitting location data attached to your name/details even if you have wifi turned off (a detail the phone companies don't want you to know).
All our data gets stored in the 'cloud/super computer', so it already had your email address.....soon as it received data to say you'd been in a particular place, the computer read the advertising policy of the company and then 'did the work' for them.

It IS sinister in how it's set up and used without our direct, conscience free will consent.
They keep stuff like this 'hidden' by calling those who know 'conspiracy theorists' ......but if you know where to source your info and know how to think for yourself irrespective of what others think of you - then you can shape your own matrix

internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT

www.ibm.com/blogs/internet-of-things/what-is-the-iot/

The 'penguin bollards' joke on MN is a funny example of this.
Type in 'penguin bollards' on your browser and open lots of pages re that.....then you'll suddenly start seeing penguin bollards popping up on your MN advertising feed...and on your fb ads...and everywhere

timelymanner

you know your mobiles have active microphones?
Big Brother is everywhere......and with all those thousands of satellites Elon Musk is sending up even a polar bear in the desolate poles will have a 'cloud file' on him.....

you know your mobiles have active microphones?

Yeah, Google constantly whines for me to turn my mic on. Many many times a day.

I was using Chrome, but logged into my personal account, whereas the email was sent to the address I only use for online shopping. Plus, I'm very careful with permissions and have turned off permissions for targeted advertising etc in Chrome.

I was planning to re-visit the purchase next week, but I think I'll try elsewhere now.

p.s. My theory is that Lighting Direct have been passed my details from another company - if it's part of the same chain as Appliances Direct then that might explain it as I've made purchases from there in the past.

gamerchick

i hope you have fun with it? years ago when FB first came out and i joined, i picked up the 'pattern' within the year. i had stalkers and so was pretty hyper vigilant/eagle eyed about everything.

ahh, you were online OP!
Well...the computer was watching you....

@monkeymonkey2010

timelymanner

you know your mobiles have active microphones?
Big Brother is everywhere......and with all those thousands of satellites Elon Musk is sending up even a polar bear in the desolate poles will have a 'cloud file' on him.....

I didn't have my phone with me. I'm going to put tinfoil on my shopping list - to make myself a hat

@rapidfyre everywhere and every website does it.....don't bother "trying elsewhere" they all do it! We are a pretty tiny company and we can see most of our visitors' e-mail addresses and can then target them with advertising, emails etc etc etc.... It's normal, ubiquitous...(and you aren't going to be able to avoid it!)

even going into a store to buy something, we have a Google supplied mobile tracking device in our store (as do many many others) and you can be got that way as well! Store cards as well....

Sometimes I have been thinking about what to cook for dinner - not said anything aloud - and a recipe comes up with exactly that ingredient.

You'd think, given all of that (and I've given up caring about it these days) a bloody track & trace app would be easy!!! Jesus wept.

Are people still surprised that you can be talking about something then it appears as a suggestion for you somewhere online. OP yeh I'd say your connection with appliances correct was probably the route for this one if it was a different email to your google.

You'd think, given all of that (and I've given up caring about it these days) a bloody track & trace app would be easy!!! Jesus wept.

Too true 😆

I read about digital fingerprinting a little while ago - where sites/browsers will examine the details of your system information that your browser gives away and convert that into a 'fingerprint' that other sites can use to recognise and track you. It will look for anything unique about your set up eg if you have changed a font or something. Its scary and sinister.

Have used Firefox as a browser for yars and now it stops/ aims to stop trackers and fingerprinting. And also use their 'containers', where tabs are used to isolate different sites, so that cookies etc are not shared across sites while I browse.

I hope it works as it claims to! This level of intrusion and stalking should not be legal.

Some of these are just the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Big Brother is most definitely watching though.

DuckDuckGo is very good, as is Startpage, and you sometimes get different results with that one. They make their money by carrying ad-search hits (or whatever they call them), so that, if you search for 'Lawn Mowers', your first hits for that one single search will be for lawnmowersrus and mowers.com, but it's entirely up to you whether you click on them or not, and they won't follow you around the web if you ignore them. I think Startpage uses Google, but it acts as a proxy so that, instead of Google knowing what User123 is searching for, they only know what 10 million things 10 million different unspecified users are searching for right now as a group.

What a lot of people don't know is that any site that has a button to click on to share with FaceBook, Twitter, Insta or whatever (almost all websites) has a permanent link to those SM sites and what you do on the site will be shared with them and monetised if possible, even if you don't click on them or even necessarily have an account with them.

It's apparently all done for your convenience, of course. Amazon are now 'kindly' offering you a 'handy' feature whereby you can let them track every single thing you do online and then exploit that information to bombard you with adverts for what its algorithms determine are associated products. They didn't use quite those words - but they actually try and push it as a benefit to you! Can you imagine that in the real world? Somebody offering to follow you around, listen to everything you say, open all your post for you and look through all your cupboards and offer 'helpful' purchasing suggestions as a result?!

I haven't looked into it, but I hear there's a different search engine called Everyclick, which donates money to your nominated charity for every search you make. Hmmm, wonder how they make the money to be able to do that....

What always irritates me is, when just about every website tells you about the cookies they set (as they legally have to) and hopes you will click on the massive bright, flashing 'OK' button rather than the tiny little line of grey text that says 'more options', they almost always claim that 'Your privacy is important to us'. Yes, in the same way as your handbag is important to your friendly local mugger in the park.

I can well understand the old adage that, if something is free, YOU are the product - people aren't going to develop all of these wonderful programs and give them away out of the good of their hearts.

When it comes to apps, I would much, much prefer to pay a few pounds to buy it from the developer and remunerate them for their work in that way rather than have the pretence that it's all completely free, but then have my personal data tracked and sold and/or be badgered to spend hundreds on in-app purchases, unless it's a legitimate promotional scheme whereby the basic app is free but you can pay a one-off price to upgrade it to the professional/premium version, if you wish to.

I have a friend who to be fair can be a bit arsey. When the track and trace app was first mentioned she sent all her friends a message in capitals "DELETE ME FROM YOUR CONTACTS IF YOU DOWNLOAD THIS APP I DON'T WANT THEM TO KNOW WHERE I AM". I just told her she's a daft tart as they already know where you are, what you're doing and probably why.