I was just on Youtube watching a video about a car. On the video was an ad for American Public University. On the ad banner it said “Ads by Google” in the right-hand corner. It flashed “We even have degrees in Philosophy,” with ‘philosophy’ highlighted. I’m confused. Nothing about my Youtube profile suggests my interest in philosophy. And in my favorites and history there are few videos I have watched about philosophy. Now, I know that my Gmail account and my Youtube account are linked, but nothing about my Gmail account/profile suggests philosophy either. So where is the ad pulling this information? From my actual email messages? From Facebook? From ILP?
Yes, I know that I can’t expect privacy on the internet and I assume that anything I do can be tracked. However, I’d still like to know where this particular ad got its information about my interest in philosophy.
If you are using the same browser to read philosphy forums while you are logged into gmail, or youtube, even facebook, then your cookies are tracked and data is collected about you, registered under your name. The same with the smart phone, all activity is attached to your number, thus your name.
The only way to avoid this is to use a separate browser when using different sites.
Hm. Interesting. 'Cause I do several things to deliberately limit unwanted exposure on the internet: 1. I have cookies turned off, and manually enter the sites which require login/profile cookies; 2. I use Firefox, and under the Privacy tab in Options, I have “Tell websites I do not want to be tracked” checked.
Also, do you know specifically how Google Ads tracks my activity across websites? How would Google have access to all my cookies, including the ones for sites that aren’t Google?
Google can pick up key words from the emails you type and collect data as well. Have you ever noticed the adds on the side of you emails, that relate to the words you use.
Google stays open, even when you are logged out, as long as you are in the same browser. You may have the cookie function turned off in your computer, but each individual site can have access, for each session.
Most sites will track your activity, while you are logged into a particular site. For instance, you are looged into gmail, opening up your google account, you open up another window, and go to ILP, then another window for you tube, and one for the college homepage.
Now google knows you enjoy philosophy, listen to the "Dead Milkmen, and knows you attend USC. Also knows, all of your contacts, all of your emails, and all of your words.
Google is a Super Power, you must know this.
If you want exposure to minimum, turn off javascript/java/flash/etc.
You can use firefox add-on called NoScript, and you can allow/forbid individual sites.
You can use firewall to prohibit any access to ads related site like doubleclick.net and also logging, tracking site like google-analystics.com.
You can turn off images, as well.
And avoid using twitter, short URL, (supposedly) anonymous proxies, and so on.
If you use different browser profile, mac address, it may confuse some data mining software, a bit.
Basically, it’s very difficult to prevent big companies from collecting personal information.
So it seems. Thank you both for the info. I’m wary about having too many add-ons in Firefox due to the experience of instability in the past. However, I will see if No Script is worth it for my purposes. Basically, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that using the internet blows individual privacy away.
