I have no sources at all, but my memory tells me that I've read that Visa, Mastercard and similar sell "anonymous" transaction info and that Google is their customer. I've been living under the assumption that Google could de-anonymize practically all that transaction info when they match it up to all their other info they track us with. Maybe I'm wrong?
Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
11–20 of 494 posts
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#12I think that usually these things are actually just a symptom of the fact we see hundreds of ads every day. Most of the time you don't consciously notice them but then, when they trigger some recognition, you do and it feels like a big coincidence - which I find almost as disturbing as the idea that they were somehow watching.
The eerie feeling compounded by the fact that we are sometimes correctly targeted and there's no way to distinguish the two. Zeynep Tufekci writes a lot about the this type of thing if you're interested in it.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#13Have you been googling about your symptoms, illnesses or anything else that can have a connection to drugs like Voltaren?
No I’m almost certain I haven’t. Because I’ve used it before and I don’t really have any questions about it so I ran out and I just go buy more. At this stage I’m just assuming it’s a coincidence. It has made me realize the holy grail for google and advertisers is to access your bank transactions and advertise to you based on that.
A bank transaction would not reveal what product you bought whereas a receipt would.
If prices were unique you could deduce something from a few items bought together though.
In the business of advertisements the user pays for clicks. However, it would be much more reliable for the user to pay for ads that led to actual transactions instead of just clicks.
Is there some reason for why this hasn't happened so far? (Or has it already happened?)
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#14Did you take your phone with you to the chemist, and did it have GPS or Wi-Fi enabled? That wouldn’t explain the exact match but the product category, and choosing Voltaren feels like a pretty plausible coincidence given the category.
IIRC this is the most probable cause. Not to be a conspiracy nut but it probably didn't help if you spoke of it out loud either
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#15What phone do you use?
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#16Don't you use an adblocker? I could be being targeted with all sorts of stuff but I'd never know.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#17I have no sources at all, but my memory tells me that I've read that Visa, Mastercard and similar sell "anonymous" transaction info and that Google is their customer. I've been living under the assumption that Google could de-anonymize practically all that transaction info when they match it up to all their other info they track us with. Maybe I'm wrong?
Some payment providers, like WorldPay, have both online and real-world payment systems so you can imagine they could be passing back that type of targeting info.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#18It's credit card purchasing data, which is sold and cross linked to your identity for advertising re-targeting.
It is deeply invasive and should be blocked.
It works like this. You go to a store and buy, say, a sexual wellness product. You then get targeted with ads online (search result ads, facebook ads, news media ads, amazon sponsored results etc) for the same product, or something related (let's say something embarrassing that you might not want other people to see). Other users on your same network or IP may also be re-targeted with the same ads.
Credit card data tracking is a levelling up of surveillance capitalism. It is deeply intrusive. Not all card providers participate, but it is a significant source of revenue for them [1]
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90490923/credit-card-companies-a...
[Edit: Removed specific reference to a medication as it likely triggered anti-spam]
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#19It might be that you are just noticing the ads now that you bought the product. I read about similar observations recently. Might be a cousin of frequency illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion?wprov=sfti1
It's been a few times now where I've talked with my wife about some new product (physically, in the room) and she starts seeing ads about it. I thought that was the explanation too, but it's happened too many times for comfort.
I know my devices are (probably) not listening, but I can't explain it either. Neither of us searched for the product or saw it online or anything, we just discussed something and got ads about it a few minutes to hours later.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#20It might be that you are just noticing the ads now that you bought the product. I read about similar observations recently. Might be a cousin of frequency illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion?wprov=sfti1
Gaslighting in the Information Age: You just imagined that ad started following you around.