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How to See What the Internet Knows About You

nytimes.com

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Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#11

Post by bdamm »

Swizec wrote: post #7
owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

Hint: they don't care. It works well enough. I use remarketing and it definitely annoys some people and they complain that I'm following them around. But you know what? They buy. Without remarketing they forget. I would love to turn it off after they do buy, but it's too hard to configure and hey, it reminds them to actually use the thing they bought. Customers are great, but only users tell their friends,

The better ad would market the product your friend just bought to you. The privacy concerns are enormous, but regardless, the data is there today and I'd be surprised if it isn't already at work.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#12

Post by Swizec »

bdamm wrote: post #11
Swizec wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: they don't care. It works well enough. I use remarketing and it definitely annoys some people and they complain that I'm following them around. But you know what? They buy. Without remarketing they forget. I would love to turn it off after they do buy, but it's too hard to configure and hey, it reminds them to actually use the thing they bought. Customers are great, but only users tell their friends,

The better ad would market the product your friend just bought to you. The privacy concerns are enormous, but regardless, the data is there today and I'd be surprised if it isn't already at work.

Facebook has a "People who liked your page and their friends" audience option for ads.

Another great one is "lookalike audience based on LTV". So you only advertise to people who are like your biggest customers.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#14

Post by hmhrex »

komali2 wrote: post #4

>start with this neat and medium-scary site, which our friends at Gizmodo flagged, that shows you everything your browser knows about you the second you open it. (clickclickclick.click) "Subject has entered the website. Subject has 4 cores..." followed by a bunch of notes about my mouse moving around, or me making the window inactive. Hardly terrifying.

Although very fun. It also grabs way more data as time goes on. And it's a pretty interesting little art project.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#15

Post by spyspy »

gaius wrote: post #10
owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

The purpose of these ads is not to sell you stuff. Its to sell advertising to companies that don't understand this internet stuff but are terrified of being "left behind". The ads need to be plausible, thats why someone has to see them, but who that is literally doesn't matter.

Ad companies make money based on clicks, not views. It's in their interest to make them interesting enough to click on.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#16

Post by jasonrhaas »

I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it.

I've always known this is happening and previously I didn't care because you figure if you are going to get advertised to, why not make it relevant, right? Well, it's more complex than that, here are the problems I have with this kind of data tracking:

1. Data can we used against you in ways you might not understand or have considered. 2. It's a waste of money and resources. Think of all the extra bandwidth, server space, human time, that is spent on just trying to sell people more shit. 3. I don't like the idea of people making money off my data without my knowledge. 4. Targeted ads might distract me and cause me to waste extra time online.

Bottom line -- I have a moral objection to the whole idea of it, and will do everything I can do stop it.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#17

Post by pmoriarty »

owlninja wrote: post #6

These companies know "more about your life than you do", but yet the targeted ads continue to be pretty useless. The ad on this site was an Amazon ad for a pool filter I bought on Amazon about a week ago. It should know that I don't need these for like another year now. The other was for a cruise which I just got back from last week. Maybe some after-sun lotion or something vehicle related for the fact I drove 6 hour…

One of the points of advertising is to get you to recognize the brand, so that in the future when you shop for similar products you'll think of theirs as a familiar brand (even tough you may have no memory of ever having seen their ads).

Ads also often get you to associate positive feelings with the brand or product. Again, this might not result in directly buying the product right away, but next time you think of it, you'll be more likely to buy it than if you never saw the ad.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#18

Post by andmarios »

jasonrhaas wrote: post #16

I recently got tired of all the creepy targeted advertising, so I hit the nuclear option. Turned off all targeted ads on all social networks, cleared all cookies, all search histories, and installed the Disconnect Chrome extension. Also disabled all images in my email to stop those email trackers. I've always used an ad-blocker but I don't think that stops the data collection aspects of it. I've always known this is…

I tried it a couple years ago with Google and once targeted ads were off, I would get many ads about gay dating sites. Once I turned targeted ads on again, these ads disappeared.

Re: How to See What the Internet Knows About You

#19

Post by blowski »

spyspy wrote: post #15
gaius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of these ads is not to sell you stuff. Its to sell advertising to companies that don't understand this internet stuff but are terrified of being "left behind". The ads need to be plausible, thats why someone has to see them, but who that is literally doesn't matter.

Ad companies make money based on clicks, not views. It's in their interest to make them interesting enough to click on.

_Some_ ad companies make their money on clicks. Others charge per impression, and others charge per acquisition.
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