I'm being watched online

[jmc]

When I go to my hometown newspaper website, I get Anbo grapple ads. (not a general advertiser around here) Creepy.

 

[cjfling]

Welcome to the world of Internet advertising. Most likely your being tracked by cookies placed on your computer by the webpages you visit. Other ways are through being logged in to a web service (email, facebook & etc.) while browsing that is tracking your Internet habits. You can go into the setting of your web browser and delete the cookies, but it might also disable some features that you like.

 

[two_bit_score]

You have been placed on the cookie monsters list.

 

[von-mil]

I just found this web site where you can read up and, if you like, opt out of that sort of user-specific web advertising. How well the opting out works, I will have to wait and see.

http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

 

[KPark]

The introduction of flash cookies have changed the playing field. Regular cookies would only be available to the sites/affiliations that placed them, and can be controlled at the discretion of the end-user. Flash cookies are persistent regardless of what the end-user may want (you can't delete them easily) and allows browsing history to be read by the marketing people (without your knowledge).

That doesn't even touch Browser Helper Objects or other entry points of ad/malware. Script blocking helps. Ad blocking helps. Spywareblaster from Javacoolsoftware is great at catching a lot them, but no one solution catches them all. Stay away from Internet Exporer and use some other browser like Chrome or Firefox.

Just like alleyways in a city, the internet can be a dangerous place and one strategy is not enough to protect you in all the situations you will find yourself.

 

[Wacky]

Just like alleyways in a city, the internet can be a dangerous place and one strategy is not enough to protect you in all the situations you will find yourself.

:laughing:

 

[MossflowerWoods]

When I go to my hometown newspaper website, I get Anbo grapple ads. (not a general advertiser around here) Creepy.

Just wait until your wife uses the computer.
You will start getting Mark Kay makeup and playtex underthingie ads!:shocked:

:laughing::laughing::laughing:
David

 

[Chef Pa]

Just wait until your wife uses the computer.
You will start getting Mark Kay makeup and playtex underthingie ads!:shocked:

:laughing::laughing::laughing:
David

And the mention of Mary Kay and playtex underthingie put a kenmore appliance ad on my screen... I would think bras and panties would come up, not home appliances?

 

[beppington]

An idea from a trouble maker ...

From now on we should all type in what we actually want to post ... & before submitting it add a bunch of random, crazy "tag words" at the bottom. You can change the font color of these tag words to white if you don't want them to be easily read/ distracting. This would mess with 'em for a little while anyway and entertain us to see what crazy ads come up! :laughing:

nfl ncaa madonna ohio texas drought global communism satan salad transformers pluto earth bahamas alaska shark tank *****

 

[jmc]

Maybe the best counter against this is to start a movement where everyone clicks on these ads, even though they are of no interest. Those companies would get tired of paying for empty responses pretty fast.