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Title: Google Ads tracking me everywhere I go.
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Published: Jan 6, 2011
Author: Me
Post Date: 2011-01-06 13:33:42 by Critter
Keywords: None
Views: 306
Comments: 15
A month ago, I searched for and purchased two pounds of rye flour online, from a site called My Spice Sage or something like that. I had checked every local market, supermarket, and came up empty. Lately, I have noticed that every site I go to which uses Google Ads is showing me ads for My Spice Sage. At first I was thinking, wow, this spice place is spending a fortune on google ads, they're everywhere, but just now I remembered my flour purchase, and I seemed to remember that name. I clicked on an ad and went to their site, and sure enough, I was able to log in their and see my past order. Somewhere in google ad universe, they must have my IP recorded and are targeting ads to me base on my past buying habits. This also occurred over the summer with marine supply ads, but I never did get a chance to check it out thoroughly. This is pretty spooky. I'm sure it's been discussed here at some point, no? Or am I making a new discovery? Anyone else notice anything similar happening?
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#1. To: Critter (#0)
They're using a tracking cookie. It is inserted by a Google program called "Ad Sense" which records the key data so that wherever you go and whatever you do, as long as that cookie is present, they can deliver ads specifically aimed at you and your browsing/buying habits. Not all sites warn you that they are attaching that cookie. Your browser should allow you to remove it. Even though it is a pain in the ass I periodically just do a mass delete of ALL cookies.
I thought mine get scrubbed every day by my spyware program. I guess I better start doing that manually and see if things change. Here's a screen shot from a visit to The Daily Paul a few minutes ago:
#3. To: Critter (#2)
A cookie is different from a specific malware or spyware program. As such your spyware program likely does not recognize it as spyware (and it would not surprise me if Google is not paying them to keep it that way).
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#2. To: Original_Intent (#1)
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