Targeted Ads -- How Do They Know?

[hollohas]

Half the targeted ads I see are for stuff I already purchased. That's a HUGE waste of advertising money to target people who already have the product IMO.

[izzy]

Half the targeted ads I see are for stuff I already purchased. That's a HUGE waste of advertising money to target people who already have the product IMO.

That always cracks me up. Especially when it's something you won't usually buy twice like a water heater.

[Gman]

Here's a fun one...

Kaspersky AV injected unique ID that allowed sites to track users, even in incognito mode

Antivirus software is something that can help people be safer and more private on the Internet. But its protections can cut both ways. A case in point: for almost four years, AV products from Kaspersky Lab injected a unique identifier into the HTML of every website a user visited, making it possible for sites to identify people even when using incognito mode or when they switched between Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

The identifier, as reported Thursday by c't Magazine, was part of a blob of JavaScript Kaspersky products injected into every page a user visited. The JavaScript, presented below this paragraph, was designed to, among other things, present a green icon that corresponded to safe links returned in search results.

c't reporter Ronald Eikenberg found something unsettling about the JavaScript injected by the Kaspersky AV product installed on his test computer?the tag 9344FDA7-AFDF-4BA0-A915-4D7EEB9A6615 was unique to his machine, and it was injected into every single page he visited. It didn't matter if he used Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Opera or whether he turned on incognito browsing. The identifier acted as a unique serial number that website operators could use to track him.

Kaspersky stopped sending the identifier in June, after Eikenberg privately reported the behavior to the AV company. The identifier was introduced in the fall (for those in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway) of 2015. That meant that for close to four years, all consumer versions of Kaspersky software for Windows?including the free version, Kaspersky Internet Security, and Kaspersky Total Security?silently branded users with a unique identifier.

[FoxtArt]

Anyone using Kaspersky is nuts. There's "spyware", which we all know as advertisement harvesters, but the reason Kapersky has is real "SpyWare" that has nothing to do with ads. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It's sad really, Russia would probably have a lot more tourism if they didn't crawl so far up people's ass to see the stomach ulcers.

[BladesNBarrels]

Russian tourism.
Reminds me of the satirical song lyrics when Chevrolet and Dinah Shore were advertising, "See the USA in your Chevrolet" in their 1964 Go West Campaign

See the USSR in your Armored Car
Khrushchev is asking you to die!

Dinah Shore and Chevrolet, 1964

[Grant H.]

I will bet that most here have never read the full terms and conditions that go along with using an Apple/Android device... 99% of society can't be bothered to...

You have a device that has the capability to listen to you, reach out to the servers at "home", and respond when "you want it to", but you happily assume that they only do this when you want them too... Right...

A prime example of this is the FB messenger app. The permissions that folks agreed to, when installing this app, included the ability for the app to turn on/off all Radios, Cameras, and Microphones, without the permission, OR KNOWLEDGE, of the phone owner. Out of the "however many billions" that use FB, how many do you think don't have that app installed?

The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of society runs off and buys into the latest and greatest technology without a thought as to their privacy and informational security.

Same thing goes for the Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or any of the others...

Along with all of this, if you believe that Amazon, Google, FB, Apple, etc don't willingly share the information that they collect with .gov and other TLA's, you're delusional...

[Justin]

I will bet that most here have never read the full terms and conditions that go along with using an Apple/Android device... 99% of society can't be bothered to...

You have a device that has the capability to listen to you, reach out to the servers at "home", and respond when "you want it to", but you happily assume that they only do this when you want them too... Right...

A prime example of this is the FB messenger app. The permissions that folks agreed to, when installing this app, included the ability for the app to turn on/off all Radios, Cameras, and Microphones, without the permission, OR KNOWLEDGE, of the phone owner. Out of the "however many billions" that use FB, how many do you think don't have that app installed?

The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of society runs off and buys into the latest and greatest technology without a thought as to their privacy and informational security.

Same thing goes for the Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or any of the others...

Along with all of this, if you believe that Amazon, Google, FB, Apple, etc don't willingly share the information that they collect with .gov and other TLA's, you're delusional...

Even if you do read the terms and conditions, so what?

There's literally nothing you can do. You can't modify the terms. You can't adjust what the app does. Hell, you can't even go to a market competitor because any other company on the market is doing pretty much exactly the same thing. Your only options are literally to either submit entirely or be locked out of the technology and services that undergird nearly everything nowadays.

There's literally no other mainstream option. If you care about your security you're either stuck being a luddite, or forced to take make staying private via technology into something akin to a secondary hobby.

[Irving]

It's a little more than that people can't be bothered to read those terms and agreements. I was listening to a podcast about this very issue and they were saying that they took some pretty simple app (I don't remember which one) and printed the terms and agreements and it was over 500 pages or something ridiculous, and it took a team of people something like a week to even get through all of it. Those terms and agreements are purposely long and difficult reads (just like most of our proposed bills). That doesn't completely remove the responsibility of people of course.

There are a few apps that I'd like to have installed on my phone, but since they want permission to view my contacts, location, photos, camera, and mic, I won't install them.

I wish more people would refuse to use apps actually. It seems like EVERY company has some app they want you to install, and it really is a problem.

[Irving]

Is there a meme with a person being water boarded with pop-up ads? If not, there should be one.

Want to see all your targeted ads at once? Head over the www.backyardchickens.com. That place is basically ARF.com but for chickens. When I check that site without being logged in, I can barely make it off the landing page.