INTERNET QUERIES (POSSIBLY COOKIE)

[PURPLESWAN]

I have noticed recently when im on the internet that adverts for other things I have looked at appear on the screen.

I had put it down to coincidence when it was Amazon or First Choice but now the EXACT earrings I was looking at on QVC appeared on a forum I was looking at and the EXACT hotel I was looking at appeared on another.

This is getting annoying - what is likely to be the culprit (in my cookies?) and more importantly can I stop it?

It is most likely to be Criteo retargeting advertising.

Next time you see the banner advert, see if there is a small i in the bottom right corner. Hover the cursor over that i and click where it says Click Here. That will then take you to further information about the particular advert you are seeing and let you disable the service either on a temporary or permanent basis.
Once opted out, don't delete the opt-out cookie, else the system won't know you have opted out.

Opps, that didn't quite work, only the letter i was supposed to be in bold.

Thanks will give that a go!

This sort of thing is going to become increasingly common over the next few years as businesses to get value out of their web customer data.

An opt out cookie is a start, but if you clean out your Cookies it's gone, and you've only opted out of one companies scheme.

One of the biggest things you can do to stop this sort of thing working is to block Cookies from web sites other than the ones that you are explicitly visiting. That will stop people like Criteo dropping a Cookie onto your machine when you view some other web site. And it's the dropping off of that Cookie that lets them work out who you are, which lets them track the things you view, which in turn lets them "retarget" their adverts at you.

Oddly enough Criteo themselves provide some pretty good instructions on how to do this:
extranet.criteo.com/resources/docs/Process%20to%20block%20Criteo%20banner%20via%20Browser%20Options.pdf

If you're very keen on stopping as much of this sort of thing as you can then depending on the browser and Operating System that you use then there are other things that you can do. Provide that information and someone will chip in with the details.