topic Re: The invasive internet in Community Chat

The invasive internet

Shorty2U — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 05:53:35 GMT

I ordered some things online for Christmas. One place I ordered my granddaughter a piece of clothing that has to do with helping animals. (that she wanted for one of her gifts).

Well, I gave MY "shopping only" email address, and DH's credit card and name.

No 5 minutes later I get a message on FACEBOOK in chat telling me about my order and it says they will contact me through that when its shipped.

I never gave them my facebook name!, but the email (which I thought they would use for contact), is associated with my facebook account. (And that email I use to order things so I don't get bombarded with offers in my "newer email address" after the holidays like I do in my email I use to shop)

Anyway I thought boy the Internet sure is invasive, that they found out my facebook name the minute I ordered from my email.

They are reputable BUT I just hope they dont keep bothering me on facebook chat for an eternity with ads and offers!

Like i said I assumed they would contact me via email not on faceook = Annoying!

As they said in the book I read in school, (I believe it was called 1984), big brother is watching! lol.

Re: The invasive internet

hckynut — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 08:05:21 GMT

@Shorty2U

Every website you visit to look at items tracks you. Go to QVC and look at a product and chances are the next time you open your e-mail or same browser, you will see the items you were looking at during that visit.

There are some products on the market that claim to "stop tracking", but the ones I have read about are not something that has convinced me that they work.

Remember the old private world we used to live in, no cameras on every block/nobody stealing your medical paper work from your doctor or hospital/nobody able to track your every move on the "Glorious Super Highway known as the Internet and/or Cyberspace or The Cloud"?

I do, and one known as an electronic geek since the 1950's? Give me those years of technology any day, comparatively speaking.

hckynut(john)

Re: The invasive internet

Zhills — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:02:33 GMT

My email is bettyray. You would be surprised at how many emails "Ray" gets.

Re: The invasive internet

Cakers3 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:12:28 GMT

I've noticed more and more websites have icons to link to FB, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

Although I participate in none of those is it possible that clicking on one of those icons link you automatically?

There is no privacy on the internet, really.

Re: The invasive internet

Allegheny — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:17:53 GMT

@Shorty2U

This kind of stuff annoys me. So what if you are using an email addressed associated with your Facebook account. These companies should ask our contact preferences before they attach their notifications. May-be it me that I don't know enough on how to thwart this kind of stuff.

Re: The invasive internet

SydneyH — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 14:59:34 GMT

Except this isn't the 50's anymore, tracking is occuring in our daily lives and isn't going away anytime soon, if ever imo.

Re: The invasive internet

2blonde — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 15:00:37 GMT

What I hate the most is when I visit practically any website, how certain home shopping channels put those lousy advertisements on the page, practically covering the page I'm trying to look at. I would never consider buying any of the items they show me, and in fact many are items I've already purchased or I looked at a year ago! I just don't care to clear my browsing history (for various reasons), so I guess I have to put up with this.

Re: The invasive internet

Perkup — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 15:20:24 GMT

Thus some of the many reasons I do not do Facebook, Twitter, or any of the many other personal information sites that are

out there for people to have their information sifted through. I

was told years ago by someone involved in the creation of one of these sites that we should stay off them. And I do.

Re: The invasive internet

halfpint1 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 15:42:57 GMT

The other day I ordered something they showed and they knew who I was. I had not ordered anything from them ever. I thought maybe they had an interest in another company I bought from.

Re: The invasive internet

Marp — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 15:57:09 GMT

@2blonde, I don't clear my browing history but I do run the free CCleaner everynight to remove unwanted cookies and to clear cache. In conjunction with uBlock Origin I seldom get ads from anywhere and never from the shopping channels.

Re: The invasive internet

Tinkrbl44 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 16:11:12 GMT

@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.

Re: The invasive internet

Kachina624 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 17:49:43 GMT

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.

Re: The invasive internet

Zhills — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 18:25:39 GMT

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

Re: The invasive internet

Phantom41 — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 18:43:45 GMT

@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.

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

Re: The invasive internet

chrystaltree — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 21:59:20 GMT

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.

Re: The invasive internet

skuggles — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 22:23:45 GMT

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?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-10-22&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_image

Re: The invasive internet

KaySD — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 23:22:52 GMT

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.

Re: The invasive internet

Shorty2U — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 23:54:09 GMT

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.

Re: The invasive internet

ROMARY — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 01:00:13 GMT

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?

Re: The invasive internet

Moonchilde — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 01:10:32 GMT

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.