Be careful out there, DUers...your every move is tracked...

[Atman]

I'm at work. I never dump my cache or history because...well, heck, it's only work. Nothing to see here, move along.

Anyway, I snowboard, and have posted about it on DU. And I check the snow reports from time to time when things are slow. I lurk at CU and get hit with ads for ski resorts in my area. Hmm...curious (not really, if you know how cookies work).

So today I upgraded my computer to Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5. While I was waiting for the very-long installation, I surfed over to DU. I wasn't logged in yet, so I got hit with the ads, and damned if they weren't all for ADOBE products, which I've NEVER seen on DU before. I wasn't even finished installing the software yet!

The message here is...be careful out there, people. Adobe is one thing, but your favorite porn sites are no different. Wear protection.

.

[FarLeftFist]

1. Ski ad on right side of page for Tremblant. Now your searches are rubbing off on me.

[Atman]

3. See, I told ya so!

LOL! It really is creepy, though. Clear your cache and history often. Or use Private Browsing. Or go back to hand-written letters.

[FarLeftFist]

6. Oh yeah I know all about it. The internet is ALWAYS watching.

[dogknob]

2. Confirmed

I have been getting a lot of ads here from whotune ever since I put some of my music on their site.

[Cleita]

4. Actually, I read something about the cookies thing. Google and other websites use them to filter

ads and direct them to those who might be most interested in them. For instance I look at beauty products a lot on line so I get those kind of ads thrown at me, not just here, but other websites I might be lurking at. There's nothing nefarious there, however, the technology does make you wonder who else is tracking you. There doesn't have to be ads involved if some entities are just spying on you.

[Atman]

7. I'm not claiming anything nefarious...

I know how it works. Any site you visit will plant a cookie on your computer. When you visit DU, for instance, that cookie can read the text of the messages you post and determine that you like snowboarding or beauty products. It's not nefarious, it's just modern-day marketing.

But you gotta wonder...if it's so easy for ski resorts and hair salons to do, who the hell else do you think might be tracking your posts on DU?

Excuse me while I don my tin-foil hat. (Shit...now I'll get ads for Alcoa and that damned "Lids" store at the mall).

.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I'm weirded out by the fact that I'll go to a website

to shop for a particular thing, and then when I later go to the local news websites to check the news, WHAT I SPECIFICALLY SHOPPED FOR pops up in their ads. I don't like it.

[Occulus]

9. Even showing a *related* product, a "you may also want to buy",

somewhat ameliorates the creepiness. That's sometimes helpful.

Advertising to you more often what you already bought? .....Why?

I've never understood it.

[TwilightGardener]

10. It's usually whatever I clicked on but didn't buy--

I guess these sites want to follow me around and tempt me with images of what I briefly considered. I'm used to the cookies and seeing the stores I shop at popping up at me, but the weirdness of them keeping track of what I specifically looked at while there...yep, just creepy.

[Occulus]

8. How did you obtain the installer?

Did the installer ask you for any reasonable contact information (such as a valid email address to verify authorized registration)?

[Warpy]

11. And if you're really paranoid, use Tor

Yes, your computer will run like shit but you'll get used to those Google ads in Dutch or Korean.

Oh, and delete those cookies daily. You never know what those Dutch or Korean people are surfing for.

[RebelOne]

12. I always clean out my cache and history on my computer.

No one else uses my computer, but the cache and history take up extra memory.

[TBF]

14. I do too -

I use earthlink for my email and for some reason it will give me an error message sometimes. Clearing cookies/cache solves the problem so I do it everyday. There may be some other fix, but I kind of like clearing those out anyway so I do it daily now.

[TBF]

13. Good reminder -

many of us use ad blocker, but that just keeps you from having to see the nonsense. It doesn't mean that they've stopped their data-mining and it will show up in your email.