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Websites that seem to know what you'be been looking for on other sites.
John P - 13/2/13 at 06:49 PM

Recently I’ve noticed that some sites seem to know what items I’ve been looking at on apparently un-related sites.

For instance, a couple of days ago I was looking at the price of back-nut spanners on both the Screwfix and Toolstation sites.

This evening I was looking for a book on Amazon and below the area where the book was shown was other items you may be interested in which were back-nut spanners from various other suppliers.

Presumably Amazon pick this up somehow but it happens on other sites as well. I’ve deleted my browsing history which also deletes cookies so I’m lost how this works.

How do they do this and is it safe?

John.

r1_pete - 13/2/13 at 07:14 PM

Yes, its called Targeted Advertising, most use second order proxies which track purchase or viewing items for sale, screwfix and similar sites are ideal targets to track purchasing type traffic. They see what you've viewed, and target you with similar products from subscribing companies.

They are sniffing the traffic not intercepting it, so generally safe.

[Edited on 13/2/13 by r1_pete]

steve m - 13/2/13 at 07:46 PM

I wondered why, when searching for xflow parts on ebay, at the bottom, it came up with Busty babes, com

Xtreme Kermit - 13/2/13 at 07:56 PM

Lol

nick205 - 13/2/13 at 10:08 PM

quote:
Originally posted by John P
Recently I’ve noticed that some sites seem to know what items I’ve been looking at on apparently un-related sites.

For instance, a couple of days ago I was looking at the price of back-nut spanners on both the Screwfix and Toolstation sites.

This evening I was looking for a book on Amazon and below the area where the book was shown was other items you may be interested in which were back-nut spanners from various other suppliers.

Presumably Amazon pick this up somehow but it happens on other sites as well. I’ve deleted my browsing history which also deletes cookies so I’m lost how this works.

How do they do this and is it safe?

John.



Deleting your browser history just stops the next user seeing what you've been looking at. Google (and others) will have already stored your searches and be busy applying targeted advertising everywhere else you go.

I've recently started using the http://www.duckduckgo.com search engine which works well and seems less pervasive than Google.

loggyboy - 13/2/13 at 10:21 PM

Its done by IP address, I remember looking at stuff on my netbook at the in-laws, later on wenf on there pc and low and behold, targeted adverts.

gmoto - 14/2/13 at 01:33 AM

Annoyingly, I find it often shows stuff I've already bought - I've visited a site five times, so it decides me to show me more adverts for the same site to entice me back.

If you really want to hide from it, have a look at 'adblock' and 'Tor' to actually 'hide'.
But; if I'm going to see adverts, I'd prefer them to be something I've got some interest in, at least!

blakep82 - 14/2/13 at 01:42 AM

I bought a wifi range extender off amazon, and for months they kept emailing me adverts, telling me the price had come down.
Anyway, think its to do mostly with google. Completely safe really, just annoying. Google like their chrome browser to have its incognito browsing thing, say for example buying valentines guff for someone (seems topical) use incognito so she wont know what ive been looking for, she goes on, and the targeted ads basically show what youve been looking for.
Glad im single lol, that makes no sense to the topic...

Phil.J - 14/2/13 at 08:08 AM

I'm a member of several Landrover forums and look at them most days. When I go onto Ebay there is always a list of Landrover items shown in the RH column which I thought strange, now I know I'm being targetted!

[Edited on 14/2/13 by Phil.J]

Slimy38 - 14/2/13 at 08:28 AM

quote:
Originally posted by gmoto
Annoyingly, I find it often shows stuff I've already bought - I've visited a site five times, so it decides me to show me more adverts for the same site to entice me back.


That's the bit I don't understand, it's not even associated content that I might be interested in, it's the actual screwdriver or socket set that I have just bought. Even if I didn't buy it, advertising it to me again isn't going to change my mind. 'oooh, it's in a banner, perhaps paying five pounds more for it is actually a good idea'.

BenB - 14/2/13 at 09:18 AM

It's a combination of things. When you google something they attribute an interest in that to your IP. Websites also pass to tracking companies when you visit their pages. In addition Google automatically screen your e-mails (if you have a g-mail account) to see what people are saying to you etc.

You can get round the first by using a different search engine like duckduckgo (I'm surprised there isn't a FF plug-in that bombards google with random search terms so they can't tell what is real and what is fake). Websites tracking can fan be defeated by a plug-in like abine's free donottrackme (I'm on 4370 blocked tracking attempts in a month). E-mails can be sorted be switching- Microsoft recently did a big advertising campaign in the techy mags about how they specifically don't monitor people's e-mails to send them adverts.

Theoretically a broswer do not track (DNT) flag would help prevent the majority of the problems people experience with tracking but of course the advertisers don't want it. The DNT flag is (currently) a non-complusory thing so most websites ignore it. There was some movement towards it being accepted but Microsoft decided (quite reasonably I think) that on their next version of Internet Explorer DNT would be turned on by default IE people would have to opt-in to be tracked. This caused a bit of a hooha so now the DNT flag might well be dropped because the advertising companies are throwing their dummies out of the pram and refusing to play ball (if that's not a mixed metaphor).