How do they do it?

[adolf hamster]

This whole targeted ad thing is starting to verge on being creepy.

So i've been getting very much into cappuchino's at work (colleague put me on to them) and i've been buying the nescafe sachet's in the local asda for a while, very handy.

I don't have facebook/twitter, i don't have much of an internet prescence at all, so it's not like they're figuring it out that way, in fact this is the first time i've mentioned anything about liking this kind of coffee on the internet at all.

So can someone kindly tell me how the hell amazon knows i like cappuchino's and is reccomending them to me? The only stuff i've bought on amazon is airsofting kit and stuff for the car, how do they know!?

 

[adolf hamster]

So you've not searched for them on Amazon at all?

Nope, nothing coffee or tea related ever, not on amazon or google or anywhere else. I'm well used to airsoft kit and car bits popping up in my feed but this is something else.

You've been buying them a while, you say yourself. Marketing companies know your shopping habits.

My only link is private conversations via text messages, talking in person, and the transaction data between my bank and asda could possibly link me to liking coffee (well, cappuchino's at least, i dont even own a coffee maker), this is why it's weird.

 

[adolf hamster]

if you have an asda loyalty card, they share your spending habbits.

There are companies dedicated to creating profiles of users to credit agency detail. I nearly worked for one and it was very good at it, cross matching profiles of multiple records and creating a complete, correct profile on customers.

Nope, no loyalty cards

I could get them trawling the internet to find out i like vaping stuff, their own records well enough establish my need for outdoors-y things, i'm sure the amount of hits i've got on ocuk has them knowing i like computers.

This is whats really weirding me out is i can't think for the life of me how they could know without some kind of dodgy underhand dealing going on or the prediction algorithm of the century.

 

[adolf hamster]

do you have a wife/partner?

Nobody who'd be searching for cappuchino's on amazon. Red bush tea maybe (but again i doubt it highly)

Maybe you just clicked a link to something coffee related you forgot about.

I'm not that into coffee, thats the funny thing, it's not something you ever find yourself googling or clicking links to.

at some point somewhere, you or someone else using a browser you're signed into has typed 'coffee' or 'cappuccino pod' or similar into google or amazon.

They're not tapping into your texts.

Id definately wasn't me, and we don't do shared computers in this house (hell i've got enough for a full family just for myself), so it wasnt someone using my account/browser.

Android or iPhone?

Do you have the Amazon app installed?

Android, and yes i do, but i don't do phone based payments.

Apps can 'read' your Texts/Emails, Apps can 'use' your Microphone/Camera and listen for key words, Smart chips in Bank/Credit cards can be tracked, you have zero privacy if you have a 'Smart' phone on you and use Cards to pay for things.

Leave the phone at home and buy things only with cash, see how well they track you after a few weeks then

This seems a bit too tin foil hat to me, i doubt thats legal, same as i doubt asda passing it on is legal.

I don't use contactless at all, and none of my card have it, so it's only chip and pin or cash.

Edit, i dont use my credit card for normal shopping, it'll have been debit or cash only