ad's on web pages

bordercars

story, as short as poss.

telephone call from company,

product i had considered, so invited the rep to visit.

researched on web.

Problem

every site i visit now gets an advert from that company on it, might be a header or down the side, similar tale for a company the wife contacted.

im on a mac, have reset safari and emptied cache. no difference.

have a got a spy on my machine or do thet do something from my email address / ip address.

if so how do i stop it.

HappyMJ

Those ad's are creepy. I've noticed that when I search for something. The only thing I suggest is put firefox on the mac then add adblock plus. That'll stop most ad's from appearing.

DatabaseError

there are ads on the internet? I suggest you take the advice above, firefox and adblock plus, then you too can be oblivious

Mista_C

Run each browser you use through this every now and then...

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

UncleZen

These ads are caused by Tracking cookies. To prevent them delete the tracking cookies. However thats not as easy as it sounds if you dont know the name of the cookie. Deleting all cookies would loose certain information that may require you to re-enter usernames into websites.

googler

Yup, tracking cookies that seem to know where you are.

Example: I go into eBay, and on the My eBay page, eBay has placed a banner ad at the top. Sometimes it's Argos, sometimes other companies - when the advert for s1homes (a property portal) comes up, it shows only the houses and flats that are close to me. Not those on the other side of the country, but those that are local.

zappahey

googler wrote: »

Yup, tracking cookies that seem to know where you are.

Example: I go into eBay, and on the My eBay page, eBay has placed a banner ad at the top. Sometimes it's Argos, sometimes other companies - when the advert for s1homes (a property portal) comes up, it shows only the houses and flats that are close to me. Not those on the other side of the country, but those that are local.

They can tell roughly where you are from your IP address, not just by cookies.

Rebecca.

This is targeted advertising, and you can opt out of it relatively easily. Rather than trying to figure out which cookie you need to delete, the advertising companies usually allow you to install a new cookie which disables their targeted ads. Next time you see one of the ads, there should be something on it saying something along the lines of 'learn more'. For at least one of the advertising companies, this takes the form of a small letter 'i' in the top right of the advert, which when you hover over it gives you a link. Click the link, and it should take you to the website of the advertising company, which will give you some info on how the ads work and an option to disable them.

HO87

FF and Adblock Plus is so much easier and permanently does away with adverts. No having to delete cookies or opt out of individual adverts and surfing is so much more trouble-free without the constant nagging to look at dross.

arriva

I use firefox in combination with the following add-ons:

- Ghostery (with all privacy settings ON)
- Better Privacy

I also have FlashBlock to stop videos starting automatically. I haven't noticed any slowdown in browsing speed so far.

Every now and then I run Ccleaner to clear the cookies but under the Option> Cookies tab I "save" the cookies I want to keep: banking sites for example.
I also block (in Firefox) all cookies ebay plants on my browser, for example:

ad.yieldmanager.com
ebayobjects.com
ebayrtm.com
uk.ebayobjects.com
uk.ebayrtm.com

if ebay wants to gather info on browsing habit they can pay a research agency with the fees I pay them every month. I think it's fair...

bordercars

thanks for all the replies, it really bugs me you have to find ways to stop this rather than them asking you. same with the opt out of spam, takes 7 days and is only vaild for 28 and were back at you.