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Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

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Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#141

Post by gambiting »

ecopoesis wrote: post #77
ancarda wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>VISA marketing Why is this even a thing? Maybe I should just go back to buying everything with cash, it's impossible to keep up with all the crap we need to disable or hack around

Because credit card rewards aren’t free? Banks compete for credit card consumers by offering rewards. Those rewards cost them money. Selling consumer information is another revenue stream to make up for the cost of rewards. Most consumers are okay with this trade off: they get their airline miles / low interest / cash back in exchange for their purchase history.

Credit cards are such an American thing though. Here in UK pretty much everyone uses debit cards with no rewards. I actually have a credit card just for emergencies but it offers no rewards either.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#142

Post by carlmr »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #126
55555 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, but people who just bought a dishwasher are probably somewhat likely to buy another dishwasher, even the same dishwasher, and there only needs to be a tiny fraction of a single percentage chance for it to be worth showing an ad impression.

Presumably even for that tiny fraction of people who buy a dishwasher right after buying a dishwasher there must be a limit to how many times they will repeat the cycle, otherwise ... well, we can imagine the planet Earth completely covered in dishwashers and somewhere under the mass of white cubes, a constant mouse clicking sound and a cry of anguish... Must. BUY. M O R E .

Well my girlfriend just bought a laptop, it was broken, she returned it, she bought a different laptop, again broken, and now bought a third one. Looking at how many products are DOA nowadays, it might be that a person that just bought something is more likely to buy it again than the average person.

Also in general I've noticed there are a lot of people that return online purchases a lot, even the non broken ones, since you can't determine if the clothing fits, if the colors really look good, if it has a good texture, from pictures and descriptions online.

They may not be good customers, but Google probably gets money per purchase, not for customer quality.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#143

Post by pc86 »

chillacy wrote: post #138
reader_mode wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The wierdest instance of this is I told my wife her father should consider geting those fixed bridge dentures, next day I start seeing all-on-4 ads on the phone. I asked her if she looked it…

Another possibility: switching the cause and effect, e.g. maybe you received ads for fixed bridge dentures and didn't notice consciously (how many ads do we gloss over each day "not paying attention"), but later brought it up because the mind assimilates ads subliminally (arguably the whole point of advertising). This is perhaps even more creepy than just "phones listening in", but it's not an explanation I hear very…

This is a documented effect but I forget the exact name of it so I'm having trouble finding a scholarly article about it. But it's basically how advertising is "supposed" to work from the advertisers' perspective: they get their products/brand to the top of your mind for a given subject.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#144

Post by FredPret »

sam_goody wrote: post #27
halotrope wrote: post #9

It 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

I doubt Voltaren is advertised commonly enough that he got ads before. I no longer have a Android phone, but too frequently I would buy something offline and have the item follow me - including impulse buys and things that I definitely didn't look for online. It happened with things I would talk about as well on occasion. I joked in front of my phone about visiting Greece, and a few minutes later auto-suggest in Goog…

I had the same experience with my prevous phone - a Samsung. Talked about a product that would normally be the furthest thing from my mind with a friend who took an interest in it.

Next day, voila, the whole internet is plastered with ads for this product.

I switched to an iPhone.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#145

Post by sgt »

55555 wrote: post #113
jeroenhd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dumbest ad strategy ever. Why on earth would ads about a product you just bought be effective marketing material. This is like how you get a million ads about dishwashers the day after you Google around and buy one. At least wait for a short duration of time to let the target run out of medicine before adversiting new stuff.

I used to think this, but people who just bought a dishwasher are probably somewhat likely to buy another dishwasher, even the same dishwasher, and there only needs to be a tiny fraction of a single percentage chance for it to be worth showing an ad impression.

Agree, I bought my first dishwasher a few years ago but it seems like every 15 years or so I buy a new one. It's possibly due to those ads. Just can't help myself!

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#146

Post by metafunctor »

bladewolf47 wrote: post #135
washadjeffmad wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many purchases are recurring consumables. Food, clothing, medicine, office supplies, car parts- none of it lasts forever. What does it cost to be reminded that you can buy more? Also, completely unrelatedly, if you saw some armchair internet rando claim they'd debunked a major and long-standing business strategy of market sector leader, how seriously would you take them?

Not sure if it fits with what the poster you replied to was saying but I find it a bit curious when I buy say a guitar on Amazon and my recommendations (emails or ads in other sites) over the next few days are still guitars. I do not remember seeing one of those promotions which follow a purchase being about accessories or add-ons.

I dunno, I’ve bought several guitars in a row…

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#147

Post by II2II »

baybal2 wrote: post #29

Opt out of VISA marketing https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do Second, disable GPS, and cellphone tower ID reporting (root needed.) So Google can't correlate you with sales records. At the moment, there is no way to disable Google AGPS spying on the stock Android. Third, block Google apps from reading your IMEI/IMSI/serial number, so they can't get AGPS data from your cellphone provider if it sell…

> Better, get a de-Googled ROM

If you have the patience and knowledge, I can't recommend this enough. If you don't have the patience and the knowledge, this is a good way to end up with a non-functioning phone. (It will probably be recoverable, provided that you have the patience to acquire that knowledge and don't mind being without a phone in the meantime.)

When I say I can't recommend it enough, I mean it. I have been okay with simply disabling Google services for the past few years, yet Google seems to be embedding their services deeply in applications like Phone, Messages, Contacts, and Files. It is at the point where these applications would throw up a stream of notifications when Google services were disabled on Android 10. Even though they appeared to be usable, they are clearly trying to annoy people into re-enabling Google services.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#148

Post by durnygbur »

paulcole wrote: post #132
reader_mode wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The wierdest instance of this is I told my wife her father should consider geting those fixed bridge dentures, next day I start seeing all-on-4 ads on the phone. I asked her if she looked it…

I work in dental marketing and you 100% are in the target demo for All-on-4. It’s a very popular/trendy service and is being advertised heavily now because it’s profitable, (relatively) easy to do, etc. Good target markets are: Grown adults with $$$ who either don’t have teeth or know someone who doesn’t have teeth (likely parents/grandparents/in-laws). This is basically every upper-middle class adult. More people th…

Jesus. I see dental protesis ads around the time when I see my parents. I don't have the time to set up the things for them so I'm sure their cheap Android smartphones are surveillance blackholes.

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#149

Post by dessant »

baybal2 wrote: post #29

Opt out of VISA marketing https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do Second, disable GPS, and cellphone tower ID reporting (root needed.) So Google can't correlate you with sales records. At the moment, there is no way to disable Google AGPS spying on the stock Android. Third, block Google apps from reading your IMEI/IMSI/serial number, so they can't get AGPS data from your cellphone provider if it sell…

Are you saying that Google collects and uploads your location data (GPS and cellphone tower ID), despite opting out of data collection on Android?

Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?

#150

Post by hobs »

dorkwood wrote: post #63

I suspect all the people putting this claim on the same level as "my phone is listening to me" conspiracy theories are living outside of the USA. One of the first things I noticed after moving to America was that I was being served ads for oddly specific in-store purchases. I checked my bank's terms and discovered that, sure enough, they were sharing my transaction history with "non-affiliates" so that they could mar…

Your phone is listening (or at least some are) - I thought it was crazy until I was corrected by https://twitter.com/thezedwards who actually helped build one, reformed himself, and now does pro privacy work.
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