Who Is Tracking My Internet Activities?

[MineralMan]

Why, everybody. Literally. Everything I do on the Internet is followed. Literally.

Today, I saw ads for a company whose website I visited and actually signed up with so I could use it for information for a series of articles I was writing ABOUT THAT COMPANY for another website affiliated with it.

Now, they're posting ads on Facebook, showing me on-demand ads on a wide range of websites, and trying to convince me to use their services.

I liked another company on Facebook, because I bought one of their products and have been enjoying it. Now, I keep seeing photos of that company's products wherever I go.

The other day, I did some searching for information on some stuff I was writing about for a website I'm writing. Google knows that I've been looking for that information, so everywhere I go, they're showing me links I can follow to go get more information. It will take a while until that dies down and it won't stop until I start looking for other information about something else.

I have an Amazon gift card, and added it to my Amazon account. I also have a Kindle. Amazon follows me around and reminds me that I probably need more books for my Kindle and that I can use that gift card to buy them. They also know what I've been searching for on Google, and if I go to the Amazon site, they show me stuff related to those searches.

It appears that I'm pretty popular on the Internet. Folks are following me around who know what I've been up to.

It's good to be popular, I suppose, and I'll eventually get around to shopping for something on Amazon to spend that gift card. I'm not interested in the other stuff, since I've finished writing the stuff I was writing and am moving on to something else.

I'm sure others are following me around on the Internet, too. I'm not sure what they want, but they'll let me know, no doubt.

Is the government following me around on the Internet. I doubt it. I'm not really interesting to government folks. They're not selling anything, either, so there's no benefit to them following me around.

[dkf]

1. They can only bug the hell out of you. **They can't arrest you**. Their power is limited.

You can also change your provider if you choose. The US Government gives you none of these options when they force all providers that exist to comply.

[MineralMan]

2. Should I be worried about being arrested?

I can't imagine why that would be, you know. I'm really not interesting and don't break any laws that I'm aware of. Who'd want to arrest me?

If you're worried about being arrested, probably posting a lot on Internet forums isn't a great idea, though. You do know that DU is publicly viewable, right? You know that it's all indexed by Google, right?

Everyone just wants to sell me something. I can't afford much of it, but they keep trying. The government doesn't seem that interested in me, though...but I can only speak for myself. Maybe they're interested in you, though. Could be. I have no idea.

[dkf]

3. Hell reporting Snowden's PRISM slides is distributing classified information isn't it?

Or copyright violations for posting your 5th sentence of an article.

Who knows what crap they can come up with.

Or if you are doing something they don't like they could go after your family. Any kids?

Actually you aren't in any danger since you completely toe the governments line. No dissent is safest.

[MineralMan]

5. Nah. I don't do that stuff, you see.

I mainly post original writing on DU, rather than quoting other sources. When I do, I closely follow the limitations DU suggests. But mostly what I post is original writing.

What might I be doing that "they don't like?" I pay my taxes, keep my car registration and insurance up to date, etc.

Nah...I don't worry about being arrested. Truly. That would be paranoid of me, and that's not one of my problems.

Who knows what crap anyone can come up with?

[dkf]

6. See you are a perfect dissentless type, happy as a bug when you are being surveilled.

That's how they want all of us to be.

[MineralMan]

9. Dissent? Oh, I do dissent.

All the time. It's just that I do it openly and publicly. No need to snoop around to find out what I'm up to.

[sabrina 1]

15. Lol, no you should definitely not be worried!

But as I have pointed out to you before, not everything is about you.

Oh, and try not using the pronoun 'I' so much. Just a writing tip for your information, not that I know much about writing as a profession, more as a consumer of the written word. It is definitely a way to tell where someone is 'coming from', their use of pronouns.

[PowerToThePeople]

4. dns blacklisting helps a lot with this type of tracking

There are specific sites that are collecting this information. If your computer does not know how to get to them, they can not track you.

DNS blacklisting
hosts file
noscript

many tools are available to stop this type of tracking.

NSA tracking, well that is another issue. None of these tools would stop that.

[MineralMan]

7. Sure. I know that. I don't bother with that stuff, though.

Ads don't really bother me. They reveal something about how much tracking is going on, though. It's interesting.

As for the NSA, they're not tracking me. I'm not of interest to the NSA in any way at all, except for my past connection with the agency, and that was 40-something years ago. And they're not interested in that, either, any longer. All of my travel restrictions have long ago expired and what I did isn't even done there any longer.

So, no, the NSA is not of concern to me, personally.

[Th1onein]

8. Not a good argument.

Sorry, you FAIL.

[MineralMan]

10. Ah, thanks for your thoroughly-considered opinion.

I'll take it under consideration, for sure.

[Th1onein]

12. You're so very welcome.

Choosing to give information to one person, or source, does NOT mean that I give it to another. Do you understand that concept?

[Zorra]

14. That's tough to dispute. At least, tough to dispute honestly. nt

[Cleita]

11. Chuckle.

I put up a post last night about the $38,000 purse that Oprah wanted to see and was refused by a sales clerk. Now I have purse ads popping up wherever I go on the internet.

[PowerToThePeople]

13. They're not selling anything

I believe this is false. They are certainly selling something. They are selling something that more and more of the worlds population do not want. The are selling Oligarchy. They are selling Plutocracy. They are selling vulture Capitalism. They are selling the military state. And they have been known to kill those who "disagree with enough vigor to get people to join the cause."

[Rex]

16. Should you really care?

nt.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

17. The Government is Harvesting, Storing, and Anylyzing, all your Digital Communications.

And there is documented evidence of that very fact, but in regards to your post...

Have you noticed most places you go to, you go to through google, and that most places have ads?

Guess what, those are google ads, and they are all connected to google.

Surprise, google knows what web pages you visited, then.

But they do not know what you are saying on the phone, what is texted on your cell phone, etc. in other words ALL your content.

Thats a pretty big difference between ads and SPYING on ALL your digital communications.

[Th1onein]

20. You bet there is.

And the danger is in the storage. Because, once your communications are stored, whoever is in office, despot or Democrat, if you say something they don't like, they can target you. Look at Siegelman.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. So when google puts a cookie in your browser, it's JUST LIKE the DEA monitoring you

Same difference.

Except, Google isn't going to arrest you and throw you in a room for 5 days with no food or water, until you have to drink your own urine to survive, because you're smoking pot at a party.

But really, totally the same.

[Warpy]

19. Ghostery opens up a whole world of snoopers

who install snippets of code on your hard drives so they can follow you around and place their ads wherever you go. It does work to block them, I've noticed a lot of ads going away since I started using it.

DU, by the way, is pretty clean.