Community Chat

[Tinkrbl44]

@Shorty2U

I hope you will complain to their customer service dept .....  this isn't okay.   

Have you checked how many cookies you have had attached lately?    I usually clear my browsing history at least every couple days, but neglected to delete cookies for about a week and was STUNNED at some of the sites that had attached!    Sites I never heard of, and I disallow third party cookies!   

Well .....  it's pretty obvious facebook is making a TON of money in all different ways .....  If they didn't, it wouldn't be FREE.

[Kachina624]

If you just go to a website and just look at an item, it will haunt you by showing up everywhere you do a search, as an ad, for days afterwards.  It becomes your constant companion.

[Zhills]

When I see unwanted ads I bring up a clean tab or window and clear my history.  Problem solved.

[Phantom41]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

If you just go to a website and just look at an item, it will haunt you by showing up everywhere you do a search, as an ad, for days afterwards.  It becomes your constant companion.

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 Isn't that the truth!  I've had Amazon ads follow me for weeks!

[chrystaltree]

You gave them the email that is linked to your FB account so they contacted you on FB.  I think the internet is only as invasive as YOU let it be.   My FB account has a junk email address that I use for nothing else.  I also have two "shopping only" debit cards that I only use for online shopping and I use a specific "shopping" email for those.  I don't use my real email address or my real credit cards for anything I do online.  It's still possible to maintain control of your privacy and secure your credit and credit cards but you really have to work at it.  And once information is "out there", there's no pulling it back. 

[skuggles]

If you are interested in this type of thing and the larger implications, this TED talk is interesting.http://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_can_t_control_what_our_intelligent_machines_are_learning?...

[KaySD]

Hate targeted marketing! Closed my Facebook account because of it--the minor pleasure of FB not worth the harassment for me.

Still get stalked on the internet with things live looked at, sometimes months before. Often stuff I don't even like. My little protest is to never, never use those links and never  buy anthing that has been stalking me. 

The tracking blocker software I've tried has not helped much. 

[Shorty2U]

Thanksfor the replies. I got contacted again on FB saying my item has shipped. That's fine (although I'm not thrilled!) but just so they don't keep bombarding my FB chat later.

I get those ads too when I look at something online and then go on FB later.

I do clean out my cookies but I will try some other things and I am waiting to see (after my item arrives) if they keep bugging me on FB. If they do then I will contact their CS because I agree, they should have asked permission to do so IMO.

[ROMARY]

I'm the one who, several months ago, was web searching taxi services (not for me, but for someone else).  Anyway, a couple of days later, I saw a taxi stop out front, left in a hurry; and then later that day I found three calendars on my porch, from one of the taxi companies that I had web searched.  Nobody else that I know on our block received them.  (btw, At that time, I actually called the company and thanked them for the calendars.  But I didn't think about the situation until very recently re: that they knew where I live when I searched their site.  So, we must be careful when we search various local companies.  Who knows who's working there, and now they know where we live, right?

[Moonchilde]

I don't pay much attention any more. Very rarely does something track me to a mini freak-out point. I am never going to give up all, or even most, of what I do on the internet in the name of a privacy we only think we have anyway. If you are on the internet at all, buy anything, give your email address to any site, you are "out there", so IMO being paranoid about it is pointless.

You (figurative) would have to have zero presence on any website and never do any business whatever online - certainly not be signed up with QVC, post here or buy from the website - to perhaps be "safe." I prefer to use the technology we have over fearing and hiding from it.

I speak as a generality to the issue, not in direct response to anyone here.