Advertising or Spying??

samy888

Could anyone kindly explain to me why it is that after I've visited an online retailer and looked at a product, e.g. black polka dot shoes, these same shoes keep popping up when I'm checking my email or reading through the Guardian. :eek:

At first I thought it was just coincidence, but now I'm not so sure. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but i am feeling a little worried. It's not ideal if I've been looking at presents for the kids and they just keep popping up, not much of a surprise, and highly embarrassing if I've been visiting Ann Summers!

Am i just being silly or is my internet security not very efficient?

paddyrg

This is exactly why behavioural advertising like Phorm's system is a bad idea, it creeps people right out! Yes, it probably is advertising targeted to your tastes, probably some or other tracking cookie exists to say you visited the shoes, and looked at the page for b several minutes, which is sent to the ad agency who serve you a suitable ad according to what they hope you may want to buy. Or an unlikely coincidence, of course, but if you delete your cookies it might start trying to sell you yachts and chicken kievs again.

Expect to see more targeted advertising in the future - prepare to be ever more profiled and see even more tailored advertising... And getting even more skin crawly as information is built up and shared and analysed knowing that you like to drink red wine with your Sunday lunch, so offering you case deals with your meat joint purchases!

Targeted advertising, if you believe the advertisers, is good for you as they only offer you stuff you may want, and is good for the advertisers to save them advertising Ulay to rugged blokes. I still think its a bit creepy myself, but can see the benefits!

jayme1

clear you cookies that should reset it, also set your browser to not accept 3rd party cookies.

or even better just install an adblock then no more adverts full stop

[Deleted User]

As above, use Firefox and install Adblock Plus, it's really does cut down on the sheer amount of !!!! adverts out there.

closed

install ccleaner, set it zap your cookies and flash cookies at boot. If you use firefox, you can block some tracking with ghostery, adblock and noscript, but it will slow your browsing down. This site use google analytics and chartbeat too, if you browse someone is always trying to track you. Uninstall 3rd party toolbars, and avoid free email services. Try scroogle instead of google

http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81841&rd=1

If you use IE, you could use inprivate browsing.

PasturesNew

A lot of it is from Criteo, you can opt out of it, there's a small link in the advert somewhere that takes you to the opt out page.

Retailers are paying these companies to bring customers back to their sites. Once you go to the sites a cookie is left, when you next go to a site that uses Criteo as the ad-server, they search for cookies belonging to their clients and if you've been on one of their client's sites, you'll get their adverts shown to you again.

It is annoying..... if I've been looking at houses to buy, then later I am on a food site I want to see food ads, not house ads.