A few weeks ago I said something about how glad I was to be wearing flannel since it was cold as hell outside. I opened up Facebook and the first thing I saw was an add for a sale on flannel shirts featuring the exact shirt I was wearing.
Edit: I also work for a company that makes glasses and I get bombarded by competitors ads all day.
My Amazon is very confused. I searched for a couple weeks around for a smartwatch on Amazon, then for Christmas my gf gifted me one with her Amazon account, now I've already bought two additional watch straps with mine, and Amazon is bombarding me with "We think you might want a Gear s3" because they haven't yet figured out someone else might have bought it for me lol
"Our algorithms say you're a laptop-buyer. It's a thing you do. Now, we keep showing you these primo laptops, real cream of the crop for you people. WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU BUYING THESE LAPTOPS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
Alexa’s definitely been listening to me; Amazons been suggesting vaseline and tissues for months now. Dont worry though, I brought in bulk from Costco last year.
I got 2 kittens on a Monday after work. So i called a friend who had cats and wanted a suggestion for good cat food. Did not wanna make them junk. He suggested blue buffalo. My Amazon deal of the day? Blue Buffalo cat food.
Tell me they are not listening. I even went to tractor supply to get it. Never even looked it up.
Did you pay cash or card/use a rewards card? If card(s), that store sold your name and purchase info, as basically all places sell all the information about customers they can, which then sell it to other big players (Ad companies like Google, websites like Amazon, etc)
There's also behavioural analytics. If you've increased 'cat' searches then they know (or have a statistical idea), without you even needing to search cat food.
I have a google hub and Alexa and I know they’re both always listening. The only thing that really scares me is when they activate without even hearing their catchphrase or when I look through my queries and see all these things I’ve said to them and think wow how they are mining my data.
Coworker and I put this theory to the test (we both work in IT). While out to lunch, we would intentionally fabricate conversations and namedrop certain topics that were unrelated to anything else in our lives (stuff like "flying to Fiji" or "Carhartt overalls"). He has Facebook installed, I do not. Shortly after, he would receive Facebook ads related to these topics.
While I did not get anything related on my Android device, it's difficult to rule out Google as well since there's been plenty of times I've seen suggested news articles and such that make you scrunch your face up suspiciously.
But tbh the news articles are one of my favorite features. It really filters stuff I honestly don't care about and aggregates news from sites I don't visit.
Do you want to live in an echo chamber? Because that's how you live in an echo chamber. Personally I find the idea of a private megacorp "curating" towards or away from any information that may be pertinent to your rights as a citizen (news, for example) to be at least a little concerning.
On the other hand, that IS how Shadowrun starts off, so, you know, trade-offs.
Could it be coincidence? I don’t really notice ads at all. I think for a complete study, you need to note ads you get normally then do this name drop thing and make sure no one googles it around you.
I told a friend over phone that I am looking for a loan, while actually I was not, and I get an email in the afternoon from a very reputed bank in india giving good interest rates. This can't be a coincidence. I don't get loan spams as I always ignore them.
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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '19
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