Sharing your information

[graduate_owner]

Hi all
I recently went on to a web site and was faced with the usual banner across the screen giving me the option of accepting custom ads or updating preferences. For a change I clicked update and was presented with a list of organisations that use my details.
I was amazed - there are thousands in the list. Literally thousands.
I guess I must be a very interesting or very popular person??

K

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I guess I must be a very interesting or very popular person?

Unfortunately you are not popular, you are the product. You and your internet browsing history have just been monetised. I hope you are worth it.

Was it good for you, too?

 

[ScaredyCat]

The list will be big if the site is using a pool of advertisers, they're allowing you to pick which ones you are happy with. It's far more granular than just "Google" who are fronting for multiple clients.

.

 

[Geoff_S]

My name is Geoff.

I live in London.

I am 63 years old.

Why did First Direct offer me discounts at Mothercare?

 

[Flynnwood]

Have you seen "The Great Hack" on Netflix . . .

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My name is Geoff.

I live in London.

I am 63 years old.

Why did First Direct offer me discounts at Mothercare?

A last ditch attempt at staving off their bankruptcy?

 

[Jake]

My name is Geoff.

I live in London.

I am 63 years old.

Why did First Direct offer me discounts at Mothercare?

Because Mothercare is bankrupt.

 

[Glynne]

My name is Geoff.

I live in London.

I am 63 years old.

Why did First Direct offer me discounts at Mothercare?

Are you sure there isn't something else you're not telling us?

 

[nabs]

I have been getting an alarming number of adverts for Hertfordshire Funeral Service recently

 

[user22161]

Sounds like some of you should be searching via DuckDuckGo which helps and an adblocker to remove most of the ads.

 

[HappyHacker]

While typing a reply I checked on how many trackers were on my computer, there were 524 which I deleted which also logged me out of this site and lost my post!

I n summary I have been browsing for bathrooms for my daughter via Safari on my Apple (I use DDG for searching). My wife who has not been browsing for bathrooms on her Android started getting adverts for Bathrooms on it.

I am going to have to install the new version of Ghostry for the new secure version of Safari!

Be afraid, be very afraid.

 

[user22161]

I n summary I have been browsing for bathrooms for my daughter via Safari on my Apple (I use DDG for searching). My wife who has not been browsing for bathrooms on her Android started getting adverts for Bathrooms on it.
Be afraid, be very afraid.

We get the same, I'll browse for something and my wife starts receiving ads a day or two later so keep away from **** sites I'm told it's because we sometimes have the same IP address assigned to both computers.

I have problems understanding why so many people have so much info and so many apps on smartphones, including banking. They must be mad.

 

[Robbo3]

Sounds like some of you should be searching via DuckDuckGo which helps and an adblocker to remove most of the ads.

Having changed to DuckDuckGo after StartPage was bought by Privacy One, I find the results very biased towards US results, even when putting UK at the end of the search term.
Having read Martin Brinkmann's review of the situation I'm going to try Qwant
- https://www.ghacks.net/2019/11/16/start ... questions/
- https://www.qwant.com/

 

[user22161]

Having changed to DuckDuckGo after StartPage was bought by Privacy One, I find the results very biased towards US results, even when putting UK at the end of the search term.

Immediately above the search results, there's a UK button, which then brings up mainly UK links.

 

[ScaredyCat]

While typing a reply I checked on how many trackers were on my computer, there were 524 which I deleted which also logged me out of this site and lost my post!

You deleted the site session cookie. Not all cookies are 'tracking' cookies.


.

 

[worn thumbs]

I have found ways to minimise the intrusion and as has been posted,there is a lot of it.There are a few sites I allow to leave some information behind because the site deserves some support.I almost exclusively use Linux as an operating system with Firefox as my choice of browser.In the Preferences menu it is possible to disable the setting of third party cookies,which means just the originating site can deposit them.It has got harder to find this option which makes me think the Mozilla foundation have been "encouraged" to bury it a bit.It is also possible to select the option to delete all cookies when the browser closes.

If that isn't enough there are add ons that can further reduce the clutter one accumulates.Ghostery allows you to select which categories of business can leave trackers or to eliminate all of them.The No Script add on disables ,or only temporarily allows,javascript to run and it can be shocking to learn just how many scripts are on some pages.

One other useful piece of software is a domain blocker which allows me to block all connections to the stated domain(s).The only domain I have blocked is a social network whose name begins with F....

I do have a Windows box because one or two things require it,but less than 2% of my computing is done with it.In addition to the precautions listed above I have installed Malware Bytes and CCleaner.The CCleaner finds an astonishing amount of stuff and clears it and while the Malware Bytes has yet to find anything bad,its probably because I don't use the computer very much and its nice to have it just in case.