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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?

#211

Post by bladewolf47 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #169
bladewolf47 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No automated recommendation system is going to be perfect; it’s either going to over-recommend or under-recommend. From the way the Amazon system works, we can infer that they have decided that missing to the over-recommend side is a better business strategy than missing under. And it kind of makes sense if you think about it... really, what are the consequences of seeing these silly over-recommendations? Did you sto…

I can see what you are saying, the downside is pretty much nil. And it seems like people do buy more guitars than just one. I'm currently just entering this phase where I just now stopped regretting the purchase because I couldn't play any music out of it initially. :)

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

#212

Post by smaryjerry »

pen2l wrote: post #159

Tangentially related, for the first time ever I saw Gmail losing its anti-spam game. We were doing some home-modeling and we went to Home Depot sometime early this month. And... some entity somehow discovered this. And then all of a sudden I started getting spam emails related to Home Depot's/home rebuilding. The spam emails successfully pass through gmail's filter because they seem to emanate from aol,gmail,hotmail,…

Google used to show personalized ads based on your emails but that process is supposedly stopped. Now Google reads your emails still to filter out spam and sort it into its default folders for promotions etc.

Also I guarantee I went directly to a website for a product, a vitamin, which I never searched for and purchased it and then received ads for the exact product and brand I purchased for the next week on Google searches and other Google ads and that was after they supposedly stopped personalizing ads. I don’t know if it was the credit card company, or Google analytics being installed on their website, or then just selling my data but it was obvious that someone was sharing my data and I wasn’t being told about it.

Lastly just last week I had been searching for a bed on Google, a very specific California king bed so that I could try to find the lowest price. Literally the day after I bought the bed, my girlfriend saw that exact model of bed appear on her Facebook ads. She had never searched for the bed or any bed but was browsing from the same IP address as me so I assume and that’s how they targeted her.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2017/digital/news/g...

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

#213

Post by sergiotapia »

zubi wrote: post #203

March 2020, heydays of coronavirus paranoia. I came back home from somewhere, put my keys onto the dining table and went to the bathroom to clean up. My girlfriend, upon seeing the key-chain on the table started reproaching me for being careless about hygiene. When I returned from the bathroom I saw her washing the key-chain in the kitchen sink. This time I got angry and asked how come she hadn't thought that the usb…

This happened yesterday, bought some margherita pizza at 3pm, was talking about how much a little pizza oven would cost to make it crispy and if it would come out the same. At 6pm a youtube ad on the tv showed us a pizza oven.

we need better legislation. advertising is a cancer on the entire earth.

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

#215

Post by Teknoman117 »

pen2l wrote: post #159

Tangentially related, for the first time ever I saw Gmail losing its anti-spam game. We were doing some home-modeling and we went to Home Depot sometime early this month. And... some entity somehow discovered this. And then all of a sudden I started getting spam emails related to Home Depot's/home rebuilding. The spam emails successfully pass through gmail's filter because they seem to emanate from aol,gmail,hotmail,…

The one that kills me inside is all of the student loan scam calls I get. I see straight through them, but it makes me think about all the people who don't.

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

#216

Post by newswasboring »

KaseKun wrote: post #210
zubi wrote: post #203

March 2020, heydays of coronavirus paranoia. I came back home from somewhere, put my keys onto the dining table and went to the bathroom to clean up. My girlfriend, upon seeing the key-chain on the table started reproaching me for being careless about hygiene. When I returned from the bathroom I saw her washing the key-chain in the kitchen sink. This time I got angry and asked how come she hadn't thought that the usb…

Unfortunately, though this is an excellent story, this is just an example of a bias known as "frequency illusion". It happens with a lot of things, like seeing the clock at 11:11 more than you do at 11:09. Or seeing lots of your make/model car but being blind to the hundred of other variants on the road. How many times have you opened up your laptop and not seen a Facebook add for something you just did, or something…

I understand you have used Occam's razor to come to this conclusion. And its a perfectly valid point. But, this particular story has been repeated so many times around me that I am genuinely suspicious. But alas, the only way to know would be to look at the code. And even then we might not understand because its a blackbox type system which is ill understood by even its designers.

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

#217

Post by ShockedUnicorn »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #128
lima wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany (and probably all of Europe), it is forbidden by law.

I get the impression it's not forbidden in the UK. Here's the equivalent page from MasterCard. [0] (Incidentally, the captcha is broken so the page is unusable.) [0] https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/vision/terms-of-use/commi...

The captcha has been broken for months. I don't think it's an accident.

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

#218

Post by gumby »

gambiting wrote: post #141
ecopoesis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In order to bootstrap adoption of CCs, the banks pushed for a law in the 60s that put all the fraud liability on the banks, not the card users (and, to a lesser extent, not on the merchants). Your CC purchases are quite protected and it's easy to dispute a charge (apparently a very big deal in the phone and online sex businesses).

As debit cards became popular here (well after Europe) the banks push them hard on people who aren't excellent credit risks (good credit risks = profit), because they push essentially all the risk onto the account holder and absolve the banks of any responsibility.

I have three CCs (one of each major network) and pay them off every month; it's like having three debit cards except I get a free loan of a month's worth of spending. The term used in the banking business for people like me is "deadbeat"

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

#219

Post by crocodiletears »

lorentztt wrote: post #180
II2II wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Which one do you use/recommend?

I personally use a Pixel 3 running Grapheneos.

You need a non-Verizon version of the device to do so, but there are services out there that'll hunt the devices down and even install the OS for you if you lack the time/patience https://grapheneos.org/ https://noagendaphone.com/

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

#220

Post by barbazoo »

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…

I might be naive but I don't see how the CC company would have the list of items you purchased.
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