Freaked out!!?!

[prozacfree]

oh my goodness, this might be a simple explanation and I apologise in advance but I need someone to clarify it with me.

So I sent an email at work today to a company who is quite obscure and nothing I would ever google whilst at home. My colleague also had a jacket delivered to work and showed me. It was quite unusual but probably from a high street store.

I've come home from work and have just now logged on to facebook and the company that I emailed has come up as an advert and the exact jacket has come up as an ad further down. Is google spying on me?

Yes, it's a thing. I once mentioned out loud that I would love a Dr Martens leather rucksack. Next time I went on the computer there it was in my adverts..

Jesus Sams! I had no idea. Might have to shop for the kids xmas presents traditionally this year and go into town and pay cash

Or you could install and use Tor and Duck Duck Go. I know telling someone to 'duck duck it' doesn't sounds as good as 'google it' but if you want to browse privately then his is the way to go.

Also those Amazon home devices and smart TVs (anything smart in fact)...they are all in on it too! Echo and Alexa are the worst for it!!!

My devices listen in to what I'm talking about and show me ads. It doesn't bother me at all. Really? We already have a government where the main requirement for a job is that you should share the ideals of the PM. What happens when any job requires that you should share the ideals of the government?

FB reads messenger messages and advertises based on them. I mentioned that I needed a holiday somewhere hot and sunny on messenger. Person replied with "like tenerife!". End of that conversation, moved onto different topics.

Immediate tenerife adverts on FB. Researched a bit - and yes, FB has authorisation to use your messenger messages.

A weird one here. DS2 has a disability & lives in house with care support. I am always checking his toothbrush when we visit (pre covid) to make sure it's cleaned properly or change to new head (he was just rinsing the bristles off, which isn't enough, as spittle will trickle down thru hole in front of toothbrush head & make it manky inside ) Went into their bathroom and saw this mouthpiece, belonging to his housemate. It was some sort of specialist cleaning device with little "fronds" all the way around, so you put it in your mouth, presumably with toothpaste, switch on and it vibrates, so aids cleaning of the teeth. Never seen anything like it before, and is obviously a specialist mouth device, designed for people who are not adept enough to clean their teeth in the usual way. Told my husband about it, how brilliant that someone's invented such a device, etc. such a specialist piece of equipment, etc. The next day, he said to me "look at this". Some video popped up on his phone of the japanese creator of this device, talking about how it works and why he created it. It spooked me no end.

I think FB is responsible for a lot of these apparently "freaky" occurrences. It links so much data between different people in different ways. I remember a few years ago having to warn someone that my news feed was showing him as having liked something a bit dodgy (can't remember what it was now, may have been porn-related or gambling or whatever). He claimed that he had not "liked" the page or post or whatever and thanked me for letting him know, but I suspect that FB had picked up his search history on his computer, or a subscription or something in his email address book and linked from there.

MN itself does it, haven't you noticed? We all start posting to a thread about something quite specific and suddenly there's an advert popping up for it at the bottom of the page. It's no coincidence, as it switches according to the thread you're on sometimes. Or used to.

I just had an advert for the most awful ladies top with cats on. Presumably because my daughters favourite top is the one with a cat on. Creepy!

I’m getting adverts for baby food. I told DH that the vet had suggested baby food for an ailing (now deceased) guinea pig. The actual baby is 15.

CurlyhairedAssassin Interesting. I was just wondering why I have not experienced this phenomenon. As it happens I am not on Facebook. Go figure. I do get 'stalked' by websites I have visited, but I assume that is cookies.

It's Facebook that is the link here, not Google, not your phone microphone, nothing sneaky. Facebook knows you are friends with your friend. It probably knows she bought the jacket or similar if she looked at the vendors Facebook page, or made a post about it. Facebook now serves you an ad for it as you are friends/similar age/ same sex etc.

It's Facebook that is the link here, not Google, not your phone microphone, nothing sneaky. Facebook knows you are friends with your friend. It probably knows she bought the jacket or similar if she looked at the vendors Facebook page, or made a post about it. Facebook now serves you an ad for it as you are friends/similar age/ same sex etc.

That doesn't explain the ads when people have just spoken about something. I was watching TV with DH and commented on a le cruset dish they were using. Within hours I saw an ad for one. We didn't look it up or do anything other than briefly talk about it and it was completely random, not a usual topic of conversation.

That's confirmation bias. You're ignoring the thousands of times you spoke about something and you didn't see an ad for it. You only remember the rare occasions that something did happen, rather than the much more frequent times it didn't.

@KrisAkabusi

It's Facebook that is the link here, not Google, not your phone microphone, nothing sneaky. Facebook knows you are friends with your friend. It probably knows she bought the jacket or similar if she looked at the vendors Facebook page, or made a post about it. Facebook now serves you an ad for it as you are friends/similar age/ same sex etc.

She's not on facebook.

So she ordered the jacket on her computer at work, we spoke about it, didn't describe it. I use the work wifi on my mobile phone which was on my desk. My work computer is linked to work google chrome. It was on my ipad when I got home that the ads appeared on facebook. I have never taken my iPad in to work, so my mobile phone must have transferred the work wifi search to my iPad at home? That is the only explanation surely? If it is, my mind is blown.

I think it’s just a coincidence and you’re bending over backwards to justify it otherwise. It sounds like a conspiracy theory frankly. Apple devices do not monitor your conversations.

We were discussing whether to have a particular bit of work done on house. The same day a leaflet for a company specialising in the work came through the letter box.

A few days later one of those touting for business types knocked on the door and offered to give us a quote.

Now that is scary!

@hastingsmua1

I think it’s just a coincidence and you’re bending over backwards to justify it otherwise. It sounds like a conspiracy theory frankly. Apple devices do not monitor your conversations.

Maybe, but if it was just one of the companies that popped up I may have thought it was a coincidence, but both? No, I'm sorry but there is something not quite right here.

@KrisAkabusi

That's confirmation bias. You're ignoring the thousands of times you spoke about something and you didn't see an ad for it. You only remember the rare occasions that something did happen, rather than the much more frequent times it didn't.

It's happened quite a lot at home, where DP has ordered a fridge on his iPad and the ad has come up on mine, but I didn't realise a mobile phone could transfer wifi history from one server to another. Work is about 6 miles away btw.

You sound really naive regarding tech. There’s a few separate things at play here:

Firstly your irl conversations are not being monitored for advertising, at least not with Apple. This is a conspiracy theory. That would be worldwide breaking news that could decimate the iPhone itself, as it would be a major privacy concern. If it was that easy to tap into phone microphones, you’d be aware of it. The police would use it whilst investigating crime even.

Ads are personalised/targeted based upon your cookies/search history. The wifi network used is irrelevant as it’s tied to the device or the individual account (eg your google account if you use google chrome to browse or your fb account). That is normal and expected advertising behaviour from an algorithm, and completely distinct from your microphone being monitored (you seem to think it’s the same thing - it’s not.)

If this bothers you this much, are you aware that you can just turn personalised advertising off? You’ll still get ads but they will just be generic. Check the settings on whatever apps are concerning you and completely erase your browsing history across everything. If you’re an apple user, just use safari in private mode and turn off cross-site tracking.

I think you may be the naive one I'm afraid.

Ads are personalised/targeted based upon your cookies/search history. The wifi network used is irrelevant as it’s tied to the device or the individual account (eg your google account if you use google chrome to browse or your fb account). That is normal and expected advertising behaviour from an algorithm, and completely distinct from your microphone being monitored (you seem to think it’s the same thing - it’s not.)

Please read my previous post, the google accounts are separate. The devices are separate. I never use my work computer for personal things.

YouTube definitely listens to me. I have all the microphone permissions turned off.

I was talking to a friend about a really obscure 1980s song - The Art of Noise Peter Gunn - in a location far from my house, with my phone in my handbag. Up pops the video of this song the next day on my YouTube feed. I never search for this type of music on YouTube!

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's real.

I have other examples, but this one freaked me out the most.

Yes this is normal. What you do and say digitally is commoditised! Your whole digital footprint is of value to the right company for marketing opportunities. This is very difficult to technically prevent as I think even next level end to end encryption using strong VPNs are useless. Possibly "dark web" may help but that is way beyond my technical ability and in any case supposedly a place for illegal activities.

On the positive side - at least the government can spot potential trouble makers and prevent the next serious religious hate crime atrocity and other serious national security concerns. This is why they (government big brother) proactively knows when and where the next Covid illegal mass raves and protests etc are going to take place etc.