Invasion of Privacy

Nitefly said:
Does anyone else get bombarded with adverts for ‘Grammarly’ on YouTube?! So ****ing obnoxious and annoying, **** off!!!

My grammar is always well good so not sure y they target mee :(
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Why would you not want to install CIA key logging spyware on your PC?
 
MrRockliffe said:
You've got a few tracking technologies working against you:

Cookies
Social media pixels
Fingerprinting

Combination of all 3 make it very, very easy to track you across the web. Cookie blockers help, but you're still prone to fingerprinting.
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I looked up fingerprinting on Wikipedia, although my understanding still isn't great. I get the impression from that article that it's similar to the MD5 hash that files use to ensure that the file didn't become corrupt when it got downloaded. What does fingerprinting mean as a web user though?

The social media pixels (before social media existed) were called spacers IIRC. Images of 1x1 pixels used inside of emails would "phone home" when the email message has been opened. If there are spacers on this forum or on Amazon/eBay etc, I think something like NoScript can be used to whitelist primary domains such as Facebook (if you're actually on Facebook), but to blacklist Facebook as a secondary domain. So if you're on OcUK and the forum's source code references Facebook in numerous places, then that can be blocked by NoScript.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
I looked up fingerprinting on Wikipedia, although my understanding still isn't great. I get the impression from that article that it's similar to the MD5 hash that files use to ensure that the file didn't become corrupt when it got downloaded. What does fingerprinting mean as a web user though?

The social media pixels (before social media existed) were called spacers IIRC. 1x1 pixels used inside of emails that would "phone home" when the email message has been opened. If there are spacers on this forum or on Amazon/eBay etc, I think something like NoScript can be used to whitelist primary domains such as Facebook (if you're actually on Facebook), but to blacklist Facebook as a secondary domain, so if you're on OcUK and the forum's source code references Facebook in numerous places, then that can be blocked by NoScript.
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I won't explain it as well as this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRjZtYs3wY&t=3s


Essentially: the combination of unique software identifiers (pixel ratio, browser type, fonts etc) can be used to identify you very accurately, without the need for cookies.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Look at the source code for this page and you will find 10 references to Facebook
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What I don’t understand is why website owners put this stuff in their code or why websites that don’t include it don’t make a bigger deal about how they are looking out for their users. What’s in it for OcUK?

Last week I read a thread on here where one or two of the posts referenced a product that I’d never heard of previously. Within a day I was seeing adverts for that product on Facebook.
 
Ev0 said:
It won't be 'MS' tracking, it'll be cookies, browser fingerprinting etc.
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Fingerprinting maybe. But it is not cookies. The PC has no cookies. The only browser on there is not Microsoft, and all the cookies are deleted every time the browser closes. And that is routinely checked. There is a privacy app on the PC which has all the privacy settings set for maximum privacy. There is no email. There are no apps apart from the browser that have privacy issues. There are no accounts. It is never used for shopping. Nothing is ever logged on to. There is no social media access on that PC. The PC monitor has changed numerous times, so they must be using the MAC number or something. I still suspect Microsoft! The reason is that this PC is the only one of my PC's that ever had a Microsoft Account, and it is the only one this seems to happen on ( Oddly the other PC's are not as secure ).
 
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Rroff said:
Amazon seems to have some cross-user content stuff going on behind the scenes - not quite sure how it tries to do it. I'll often get Amazon related ads and/or suggestions for awhile that seem to be based on what other people in my family, household and/or visitors that use one of our regular internet connections are doing and vice versa. Which potentially could be quite disturbing. For instance if my dad searches on Amazon for and then buys say a lawn mower I'll get lawn mower and/or gardening related ads/suggestions for a couple of weeks despite nothing in my browsing habits being related to that.
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Amazon is on my main PC and they tirelessly try to sell me junk. A few weeks ago a pet of mine died, I bought a little memorial plaque to go in the garden from ebay, the same day Amazon tried to sell memorial items to my sister. It's wasn't blatant, just one or two adverts, but she noticed because it was so unusual for them to advertise something like that. It doesn't surprise me that Amazon does this, but it does surprise me that ebay apparently shares information with them. It also concerns me that this sort of activity could cause problems, especially when we are talking about a death in the family, even if on this occasion it was a pet.
 
Last Thursday me and the Brother in law were talking about Karcher washers, when my wife got home her Facebook had loads of Karcher adverts.
I've done it myself, talking about bike locks and next thing I'm seeing adverts.
 
Amazon's algos are hysterical sometimes.

We see you bought a dehumidifier so we thought you'd be interested in seeing more dehumidifiers for the next decade.
 
kaiowas said:
What I don’t understand is why website owners put this stuff in their code or why websites that don’t include it don’t make a bigger deal about how they are looking out for their users. What’s in it for OcUK?

Last week I read a thread on here where one or two of the posts referenced a product that I’d never heard of previously. Within a day I was seeing adverts for that product on Facebook.
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Sometimes it's built in the platform and can be used for analytics. I know that when I built a website using Square space for my wife it comes will all sorts baked it.



I get some people are very private, but honestly this is just the digital advertising norm. I block ads, they collect data and it doesn't affect me one bit.

Some people like to think up elaborate scenarios where Google or Facebook will use the data against them.
 
dLockers said:
Amazon's algos are hysterical sometimes.

We see you bought a dehumidifier so we thought you'd be interested in seeing more dehumidifiers for the next decade.
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Don't you mean you looked at a dehumidifier so we're going to show them for the next decade?

Their algorithms are bad but their search engine is worse and seriously winds me up.
eg I type Suntour SP12 27.2 but I will still get all sizes and different makes - WTF?
I then can't find exactly what I'm after but I could look at another make, see the bit where it suggests alternatives and it's there.
Aaaaaaargh.
 
Yeah something along those lines. I bought a NutriNinja as a gift in December and I forever get a carousel of the billion different NutriNinja varieties on my home page now.
 
About 20 years ago technology improved everything, nowadays all it's used for is to profile, monitor and surveill people. The internet has become too centralised which is what it set out not to be, very few websites don't use things like embedded Google Analytics or Facebook/Twitter trackers.

It's quite worrysome how people have just become acclimatised to it all and see it as normal and acceptable. Governments (western at least) should be defending the right to privacy and I mean by protecting it not the BS GDPR that just requires corporations gain consent which in many cases is a take it or leave it affair, where leaving it prevents you from using services altogether.

How about just tell corporations they can't collect personal data at all unless it's absolutely necessary for a service (ie. address for an order) and then there is no reason to have pop ups asking for permission on every ****** website you visit.
 
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Funnily enough I don't get any ads targeted or otherwise, I wonder why maybe its because I've got all that stuff blocked, hmm.

mmj_uk said:
very few websites don't use things like embedded Google Analytics or Facebook/Twitter trackers..
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Yeah thats blocked.

SexyGreyFox said:
Last Thursday me and the Brother in law were talking about Karcher washers, when my wife got home her Facebook had loads of Karcher adverts.
I've done it myself, talking about bike locks and next thing I'm seeing adverts.
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Either of you wouldn't have Alexa or the like by any chance?
 
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SexyGreyFox said:
Last Thursday me and the Brother in law were talking about Karcher washers, when my wife got home her Facebook had loads of Karcher adverts.
I've done it myself, talking about bike locks and next thing I'm seeing adverts.
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Netflix app on someone's phone? they claim it doesn't but I've had too many instances where someone saying certain brand names seems to trigger ads for that with the only common denominator being someone had the app installed (not the fake one/malware) with mic permissions. Far too much to be coincidence.
 
MrRockliffe said:
I won't explain it as well as this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRjZtYs3wY&t=3s


Essentially: the combination of unique software identifiers (pixel ratio, browser type, fonts etc) can be used to identify you very accurately, without the need for cookies.
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Judging by what I am seeing its anything but very accurate more like a load of rubbish. Relevant adverts and advert tracking seem to have fallen off a in recent years.
 
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