Modern advertising uses machine learning algorithms to try and predict what you might be interested in. This means you don’t need to search for Kmart stuff for them to think you might be interested in Kmart. The fact that you bought something at Kmart was probably irrelevant, and you would have been shown that advertisement regardless.

Cool! I always wanted a big brother!

All kidding aside, there is so little privacy in today's world, and we just continually throw what little we have away for "free" stuff.

Walmart does this with the wifi network on your phone. They can tell exactly what aisles you have been to and how long you were there. They also can tell what items you bought based on the time.

In a lot of apps and programs you give up lots of rights accepting terms and conditions.

Facebook will cater ads toward what you search but since you gave it access to your mic and GPS the can use that as well. Google and apple do this pretty much also

If you use smart features on a Samsung TV you allow them to record you.

Pretty much the Southpark human centipad episode.

Read some of terms and conditions

Another one for fb is the have the rights to your pictures you post and can use them for advertising or how they please pretty much

So yes big brother is watching you and with the NSA/government you don't even get to accept terms or conditions.

Sorry if I sound like a looney but it is the world we live in, people rather have convenience then privacy

Facebook not only monitors your searching, but it monitors your texts too. I’ve mentioned rare medical conditions in a private text—nothing that I have or would ever be googling—and the very next time I went on FB, the ads were all “How to treat (rare medical condition)!”

I don't have a Facebook account. My wife does. We have our own Windows accounts on the main PC. Shit I search for shows up on her Facebook. Gotta be a violation of privacy there somehow.

Yep ... screwed up for sure.... did sane to me

I've seen behind the scenes of analytics, user tracking, and ad conversions. On one hand, the technology is impressive. On the other, it's fairly creepy how much data is actually collected on browsing habits.

So, a quick guide for the paranoid:

1) Install ghostery & uBlock Origin browser plugins. This will block most ads and known trackers.
2) For any online accounts (facebook, google, etc) go into the privacy settings and disable any personalization settings for advertising. Also disable any search engine availability settings. And also disable search history for search engines (ie, google). Or, use the duckduckgo search engine, which is supposedly a bit more private than most other major search engines.
3) You can enable the "no tracking" browsing feature in most browsers now, but it's hit or miss as to what websites actually honor it.
4) On smart phones, get rid of the facebook app. There's a lot of tracking built into that thing. It's also good at draining the battery--you will notice a big difference in battery life by uninstalling it.
5) Disable GPS on smart phones. Lots of apps and websites fetch location data all the time--more than they actually need to.
6) On smart phones, and specifically android, go into the advanced wifi settings and disable the setting about letting google location services scanning wifi networks.
7) Be wary of what open wireless networks you connect to. The organization providing wifi access can easily monitor and log which wireless clients visit which websites, if they so choose. Not that every organization does this though--just that the capabilities are always there.

For the extremely paranoid, there are also VPN services and the anonymizing Tor browser. If you open an account with OpenDNS and use that as your DNS server, there are some web filtering capabilities available.

After that, if you still want to step it up a notch, you can always bury your digital devices in concrete to avoid any and all potential tracking methods of your internet usage.

TractorDoc I'm in the same boat. Pinside is as close to social media as I get.

Hell I'm the only person I know under 30 that doesn't have a fb. Sometimes hanging out with people my age is so annoying cause they are taking pictures of their food and don't even listen cause they are on their phones the whole time.

God I sound like an old man but it is the truth

Don't even get me started on snapchat. I was at Walmart and someone was filming themselves with a bag of oreos. Like who the hell cares that you're about to get some cookies. Not that it effects me in anyway but people love feeding their ego's

Ugh and people filming concerts

Sorry for the rant but I really don't care for the world that much these days. I love having access to all this information but all these zombies and self absorbed people kinda make it a drag but at least I don't have to talk to them since they are on their phone.(I'm not a depressing person I swear)

I have noticed that things I search for on Amazon will show up over the next few days in unrelated apps and websites serviced by ads driven by Amazon.

It annoys me, a bit, when it's something I actually _bought_ on Amazon, and therefore don't need to be "sold" on it repeatedly.

Hear hear.

I never understood the tin foil hat wearers that go on an on about Govt storing personal data who at least have some safeguards, but don't bat an eyelid when a private company not only does the same thing but passes it on to third parties for profit.

I guess with companies like Facebook the user operates under that whole illusion of voluntarism and the death by a thousand cuts.

Facebook only exists to sate an innate human character defect which we all have to a certain extent.

The need for external validation and peer approval.

It's when they regularly turn to those they least care about as a first port of call (other facebook users) it simply demonstrates how crippling the defect has affected them to be able to get through the "rigours" of daily life in a first world country.

Witnessed a car crash happen in real time a few weeks back during peak hour. Watched the occupants of the nearest car not involved get out, take half a dozen photos on their phone, then get back in their car and watch waiting for the road to be cleared so they could continue on their way. No phoning of emergency services, no attempt to render any kind of assistance and check on stability of those involved. In the time it took me to get over to the accident scene, phoning an ambulance as I walked quickly they already were back in their car seats and had their heads down in the phones uploading the aftermath.

Fuck those types of people and where society seems to be heading.

I totally agree with you. Took my son to a concert last night (Weird Al). This guy next to us, young guy, was on his phone the whole night. He could not go more than 1 min without being back on his phone. It was so annoying. We looked at what he was doing and it was just pointless swipes and lame ass pictures on Instagram. He did this throughout the entire concert and had someone with him that he pretty much ignored the entire evening. How sad is that? One good thing, it makes me not want to look at my phone. I find these days, I look at my phone much less. I never take it to the gym and I just shake my head when I see people working out with a phone in hand. So lame...

Just curious...did you use a rewards card at kmart?

I only use a couple of those kinds of track what I buy cards on purpose (like a shell gas station card because it saves a few cents a gallon).

The one that cracks me up is Best Buy. I got theirs, used it a couple times, then was like WAIT...I never get a discount or coupon for using it. Next time they asked me for it, I asked young cashier girl what I would get if I used it and her answer was that she honestly didn't know. It may have a use that gives some discount or something sometime, but I threw it (and many others) away, and tell them I don't have a phone if they ask for a number. Always wondered if anybody would say what is that phone on your side...nobody has yet. Lol

I was hanging out with some buddies and we watched a news video about the worlds largest areoponics Cannabis factory being opened in our town. This was on the news web site, not YouTube. After the video we were talking about it for a couple minutes. I’m sure we mentioned the term aeroponics a couple times while talking about the news story. My buddy asked, what’s is aeroponics? We’d heard of hydroponics before so I go to google and type.

What is a

And my iPad had areoponics as the first word listed in the auto-text suggestion. Not google trying to figure out what I wanted with auto-fill, but as a spelling suggestions in the keyboard. It was right there like the machine knew what we were looking for/talking about.

This has happened many times before where we’ve had conversations about an obscure topic, then go to google to look it up, and it’s miraculously at the top of the list of suggestions after typing only a letter or two.

Funny side note. Not once while typing this post did my iPad suggest “areoponics” as an auto-text option. Maybe it didn’t hear me talking about it this time.

My issue with it all is that everything becomes more annoying. Years ago I could search for something, and quickly find the information I wanted. Now the search is monetized, and the page it’s searching is monetized. So if I’m looking for something, it feels like I have to go swimming for it.

Combine that with the fact that I can be a bit of a curmudgeon. When I see an ad for something I searched to find reviews on, the odds are I won’t buy it. Or if I’m going to buy it anyway, it will NOT be from the company that did the personalized ad.

But the monetizing of search will be what eventually kills google. Frankly, I’m surprised they have been on top this long. The harder it gets to find the actual info you want will lead to an alternative eventually. It always does. Frustrate your users, and eventually they leave.

Zuckerberg puts tape over his laptop camera and mic... Hmmm

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I put 5 layers of tape on the microphone of a tablet I have to use for work and it still hears "OK Google" fine. Unfortunately I can't disable this "feature" either so the tablet stays off and nestled in a storage bin 99% of the time.

I will research on line for most major purchases. I look, review and then go buy it. Then, for the next few weeks my pc displays ads for the product that I just bought. Seems to be the norm for everything but porn.

As far as cashback bonus - it took me 21 years to earn 1K on my 2% Discover card. Its not really cashback either- they tried to push their "credit" option on me and also suggested that I give it to charity. F that, I have been saving that up for 2 decades. In the end I finally had to provide them my bank info so they could deposit it directly. I really did not want to give that info but it was the only way to get my "cash" back.

It all Big Data and it's becoming impossible to avoid. Remember the scene in Minority Report when stores directed personal video advertisements to shoppers by name as they walked into a store? It's coming. Since sites such as Facebook know what products you are looking at on a stores website, or those sites directly, you could then be targeted via an ad as you walk into that store using facial detection.

How could a store know that the face detected is you though? Well, thanks to Apple with the iPhone X and soon Samsung your phone can be unlocked using facial recognition. If Apple or whoever then sells those facial detection records to Big Data companies....

First they got all your finger prints from finger log in on your smart phone. And even before face log in they got everyone's face scans from Facebook photos that auto detect who is in the picture.

I've found the saddest thing is that all of these tricks are to get you to CONSUME more. No one will pay for the ads if they weren't getting a return. So the more they advertise, the more we consume. And never ending messaging to make you feel unsatisfied.

Unsatisfied is how the gameroom thread makes me feel sometimes. Pinside is all I do, but use my phones navigation to find work locations. It always freaks me out when I get in my truck it tells me how long to get to work even on the weekends.

"They Live" is a documentary lol

" Watch TV Obey Consume Conform "

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I love these conspiracy threads where everyone thinks they're being spied on. Like "big brother" really cares what Joey Pinball is doing. "They" are only concerned that you are buying the right amount of toilet paper and purchasing enough aluminum foil for your hats...

Facts are facts. They (companies, governments, etc) have access to a ton of people's data , what anyone does with it doesn't change the fact that they have it. Not a conspiracy just the way the world works in this day and age

"Facts"

are you saying that data is not collected on people lol. must be living under a rock.

And every time you use your credit card instead of cash they are further monitoring your spending habits.

Still can't figure out why this guy is still making sales pitches to me, though.

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they probably don't care about me or you but there is this if they do

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I friggin' love traffic monitoring on Google Maps though. Sometimes it's a good thing.

Upvoted for being at a Weird Al concert

Seen him 6 times, met him 5 of those. Genuinely great guy.

Chris

Probably your phone. It's very common and you don't have to have a smart phone. A smartphone that will automatically connect to unknown wifi (like store's wifi) is a HUGE mistake since they track the CRAP out of anyone that connects to store wifi, including where you were in the store, and where you spent the most time.

Lots of people don't know that cash is heavily tracked now. Banks, casinos (not sure about stores, but probably large ones) have to run their cash through machines that count it and also take a picture of every serial number and automatically makes a text list that's sent to the feds. The feds (and maybe local law enforcement, not sure about that part) can put in any serial number and see where that bill has been in the US.

Any color printer in the last 20 years or so prints a code with the serial number in yellow that lets law enforcement track a document to the printer it was printed on.

So yeah, big brother is watching, more than ever.

Black Mirror.

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I work in big data, and I can tell you no one cares about the individual (e.g. Joe Pinball as someone said earlier), it’s all designed around the population you are trying to look at.

With that said, I have no loyalty cards, turn off my WiFi on my phone when I leave my house, and turn off my Bluetooth when I leave my car. I have people I work with that won’t even get a smartphone.

I don't work in big data but our clients use it. Someone mentioned "junk mail" earlier. Junk mail is not an efficient use of money anymore so our clients use big data to send you what they think you might buy. Exactly the same as as the targeted internet ads. But putting ink on paper costs WAY more than internet ads. Which is why everyone now gets WAY LESS junk mail.

Unfortunately, internet ads are easily blocked (money down the toilet unless you're enormous), and "junk mail" is less often blocked.

It cracks me up how things I look up on eBay in thrift stores will come back in targeted ads on other sites.

I was checking whether to buy the thing dirt cheap to resell! I damn sure am not going to pay retail for it!

Oh, I'm fully aware of the reference. I wrote a book report on it "years" ago. Not because I had to, , , , choose this book, I mean, yeah, they "made" me write a report, wait, so I complied,,,, damn it! They win again!

I'm old