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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?

#441

Post by thisiswater »

sushid wrote: post #438
thisiswater wrote: post #427

I would like to contribute an anecdote which turned me from a "google is listening" skeptic to someone who turns their phone off as often as possible, especially during any kind of sensitive conversation. I'm one degree removed from this anecdote, but I have no reason to doubt its truth. A group of friends were on a road trip, driving for several days cross-country. These are university-aged young males, 20-23. None…

Do you ever get irrelevant ads? I certainly do. Multiply that by billions. You're going to find someone getting ads irrelevant to them. They could also have looked up something relevant to nappies, stayed in a house (and used internet there) where the owners have a baby, etc.

They were camping so I think it's unlikely they got confused with an ad ID which was interested in nappies.

For the sake of good faith I think we should exclude "they broke the rules". Frankly, my friends aren't that stupid.

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

#442

Post by juancn »

My guess is that you either searched for something (for example) related to a sports injury or some sort of pain, or you where nearby somebody that did it.

Many cases of this are just clustering.

Another option would be if they're integrating something like Close-Up data.

Close-Up is a company that collects prescription data and sells it to different marketing companies. They usually collect what doctors prescribe, so they can tell if pharma marketing efforts are working. I'm not sure how deeply entrenched they are in the US (or how HIPPA compliant they are).

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

#443

Post by angrais »

thisiswater wrote: post #440
angrais wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I would love an explanation more plausible than their phones were listening. One of the three deviated and searched for nappies online prior to the trip. Rather than relying on external people to make judgement, you could test the hypothesis yourself: write on paper a phrase. Spend one week without ads and document all ads you see. Spend second week saying word N times per day. Also document all ads you see. Ask N…

"One of the three deviated and searched for nappies online prior to the trip." This is a hypothetical which was deliberately excluded when they decided to run the experiment. These are intelligent young people acting in good faith to test if they're being spied on. Why would they have googled nappies? I'm sorry but I don't find that explanation convincing at all.

I agree. While they may have made an effort to control for not searching about nappies, they could have implicitly biased themselves in other ways. For example, one may have googled something similar without realising the similarity, e.g., "Baby Shark" (a popular song a few years ago) or such. In other words, nappies may be related to many other terms that they may have (implicitly) searched for.

That's why running an experiment and capturing data (of searches amongst other things) could be more meaningful than anecdote from friends if a friend or such.

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

#446

Post by lolc »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #241
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.

Bought a cordless screwdriver at Amazon, now get lots of ads on Amazon for cordless screwdrivers. Bought a dishwasher, now get ads for dishwashers. Dumb I know (or I'm dumb because I don't get it) Other comment explains it though: Many people return the dishwasher or screwdrivers (they might have ordered several) - Amazon wants to make sure you buy with them (though my account history should show that I practically n…

The models use past behaviour (looking at dishwashers) to predict future behaviour (buying dishwashers). Spending cash on something is a much harder signal of interest than looking at it though. So the models would be stupid to ignore that. The question of "how many dishwashers does that person need" is hard to answer and thus mostly skipped when opportunity costs are low.

Personal anecdote: Recently I cancelled an order because a better product was shown in ads post-purchase.

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

#447

Post by decker »

thisiswater wrote: post #427

I would like to contribute an anecdote which turned me from a "google is listening" skeptic to someone who turns their phone off as often as possible, especially during any kind of sensitive conversation. I'm one degree removed from this anecdote, but I have no reason to doubt its truth. A group of friends were on a road trip, driving for several days cross-country. These are university-aged young males, 20-23. None…

Did everyone stop using the internet and stick strictly to cash? If not, is it possible that someone made a purchase or search that may have related to what people who need nappies might buy or search for, but didn't realize it?

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

#448

Post by hyperpallium2 »

angrais wrote: post #443
thisiswater wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One of the three deviated and searched for nappies online prior to the trip." This is a hypothetical which was deliberately excluded when they decided to run the experiment. These are intelligent young people acting in good faith to test if they're being spied on. Why would they have googled nappies? I'm sorry but I don't find that explanation convincing at all.

I agree. While they may have made an effort to control for not searching about nappies, they could have implicitly biased themselves in other ways. For example, one may have googled something similar without realising the similarity, e.g., "Baby Shark" (a popular song a few years ago) or such. In other words, nappies may be related to many other terms that they may have (implicitly) searched for. That's why running a…

Yes, talking about nappies a lot probably has effects on other aspects of one's internet usage. With massive data, google may well pick up these statistical trends.

A similar performance to a perceptive fortune teller. Google can appear to be a mind reader.

Apparently, walmart used to send targetted ads when the pattern for pregnancy was detected - which created problems where not all parties knew about it, so walmart disabled it.

Another commentor's two week experiment might need to have you think about nappies for the first "control" week, to account for this bias.

Also, note that "nappies" wasn't randomly selected, but suggested by the group. This choice and the ads may have had a common cause. e.g, Young adults concerned about pregnancy.

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

#449

Post by inetknght »

nexuist wrote: post #378
otterley wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you can’t use personal health information for marketing purposes. If you can prove this link, a lot of very large organizations could potentially be in serious trouble for HIPAA violations. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance...

Is it personal health information if it's tied to an anonymous ID that contains no other details about you? I doubt the advertiser knows OP's name or address when they choose which ad to show.

> Is it personal health information if it's tied to an anonymous ID that contains no other details about you?

If it's deanonymized, is it then not personal information?

> I doubt the advertiser knows OP's name or address when they choose which ad to show.

Nonetheless, an advertisement is then targeted and it's well known that targeted advertisements reveal personal information.

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

#450

Post by bcrl »

paul_f wrote: post #412
aplummer wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shop part (non-pharmacy) of a chemist isn’t a covered entity though right, so hipaa isn’t relevant at all?

A pharmacy is a covered entity, a retail store is not. Does not appear this falls under HIPAA

Where I live in Canada, most pharmacies have a separate cash for the pharmacist and the rest of the store. I wonder if there are any differences in reporting rules for the two.
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