you're being watched

[ducky911]

Big brother is watching us.

Has anyone else noticed that the adds on the side of the forum match items that you have been searching for on the internet?

I been searching for a mitter saw and termite companies and here on the left are adds?

Bob

 

[bld999]

Welcome to the year 2013. Get some adblock for your browser.

 

[rbmrtn]

and clean your browsing history.

 

[ducky911]

Welcome to the year 2013. Get some adblock for your browser.

I not getting popups...just the adds on the left....do you see adds on the left?

 

[bld999]

No ads on the page at all, right or left.

 

[arky]

I see ads on the along the right margin.

 

[donheff]

I kinda like that. I have actually occasionally seen an add that was highly relevant to a search I was conducting. It isn't like people are invading your space or something. I software bot is matching adds to metadata relevant to URLs you visit and/or search terms you enter. NBD.

 

[rbmrtn]

You can also avoid them by directly blocking the source on your router with keywords

googleadservices
adchoices

 

[ducky911]

Hi,

I was able opt out of personal ad record keeping and cleared my cookies...now I have the standard ads on the left...

 

[HighRoller]

Big brother is watching us.

Has anyone else noticed that the adds on the side of the forum match items that you have been searching for on the internet?

Something must be broken on my browser since I keep getting "unwanted" ads with pictures of Biden and Obama. Trust me, I'm not searching for anything they have to say.

 

[Janet H]

Something must be broken on my browser since I keep getting "unwanted" ads with pictures of Biden and Obama. Trust me, I'm not searching for anything they have to say.

Ads are served based on a bunch of factors including geo location, your past browsing history (google knows everything....) and sometimes keywords on the page your are currently viewing. if you recently visited a news site you are more likely to see political ads, if you are viewing a page on medical costs here at ER you may be likely to see ads relating to that.

If you are seeing ads for hot dating sites, well... you may have some explaining to do

 

[HighRoller]

If you are seeing ads for hot dating sites, well... you may have some explaining to do

Now that would be okay

 

[EvrClrx311]

I wouldn't say that it is big brother... but rather just Google being smart. By not setting your privacy in your browser you are giving Google permission to track your web searching, and since Google maintains most of the ads on the internet, they are happy to display more relevant information to you in order to charge their Ad sponsors more money. Good business practice on their part.

Some people don't like Google tracking their searching, some others don't mind it. If you're going to have to look at ads, might as well be something you're interested in.

For Firefox users, if you'd like Google to stop doing this... just go to Tools/Options click on Privacy and then Tracking, then put a check in the box "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked"

 

[Original Wally]

Remember - "Big Brother was originally Gub'mt. Which reminds me of the late, GREAT Pat Paulson. He did one of his "editorials" on censorship wherein he "supported" censors: "Censors have the right to censor what you hear. The bill or rights says nothing about the freedom of hearing. This, of course, takes a lot of fun of of the freedom of speech."

He was so funny.

Pat Paulsen - Freedom to Censor - YouTube

 

[grasshopper]

I must be a total LBYM kinda guy, no one is trying to sell me anything.

 

[heeyy_joe]

I knew someone was watching me! And those darn black helicopters, i hear 'em!

 

[plex]

Adblock so I can't see what they are trying to throw in my face and a VPN so they can't see who I am and collect information on what I'm doing. Definitely noticing that with the increased collection of information, companies and all sorts of entities are watching what you do more and more closely these days as the Internet becomes less and less of an unknown frontier.

 

[UserRequested]

I see dead people

 

[Brett_Cameron]

You can also avoid them by directly blocking the source on your router with keywords

googleadservices
adchoices

I need to figure out how to do that. I have an ATT Universe router. I will research this.

 

[obgyn65]

Please let us know when you find out. Thank you.

I need to figure out how to do that. I have an ATT Universe router. I will research this.

 

[Tyro]

You can also avoid them by directly blocking the source on your router with keywords

googleadservices
adchoices

Does that work better than this?

​

Tyro​

 

[eridanus]

Go into your computer's hosts file and add this:

127.0.0.1 googleadservices.com

and any other ad servers you want. The address 127.0.0.1 is your machine. The statement just redirects googleadservices to your machine, which of course serves nothing.

There are long lists of ad servers out there that you can append to your hosts file.

 

[rbmrtn]

I need to figure out how to do that. I have an ATT Universe router. I will research this.

It does depend on the router. The cheaper ones don't have as many features, especially for security. Usually under the security or firewall settings there is a setting for blocking sites/keywords.

I can't get uverse so I haven't touched one of their routers. It looks like they may not have that feature but another service called "parental controls" that may offer content control. Not clear if this a 2wire or ATT service.

 

[timo2]

Adblock so I can't see what they are trying to throw in my face and a VPN so they can't see who I am and collect information on what I'm doing. Definitely noticing that with the increased collection of information, companies and all sorts of entities are watching what you do more and more closely these days as the Internet becomes less and less of an unknown frontier.

the private industry data miners and trackers always have concerned me more than 'big daddy government'. There actually are some laws and regulations as to what the feds can do with collected data, while no such restrictions apply to credit card companies, google, etc.

 

[HarryL]

Get Ghostery. It's free and blocks all those sits trying to look in.