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Study Says Targeted Ads Gettin' a Lil' Creepy 241

Posted by CmdrTaco from the your-mom-knows-what-you-surf dept.
eldavojohn writes "Ever load up a completely random webpage to see an advertisement at the top for products related to what you're reading about? What about the advertisement with binoculars that says your green denim jacket doesn't really go with your eyes? Well, a recent marketing study (PDF) is saying that making a highly visible advertisement content aware is too much for consumers. It seems that to optimize clicks and purchases you should use a highly visible ad or a more diminutive ad that is content-aware, but not both. For marketers, this report talks about the consumer having this crazy notion of privacy and at some point they start to feel like you're crossing the line."
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Study Says Targeted Ads Gettin' a Lil' Creepy More

Study Says Targeted Ads Gettin' a Lil' Creepy

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  • NEWSFLASH! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Bananatree3 ( 872975 )
    Researchers have recently discovered gamblers like money, scholars spend lots of time reading and fishermen are often on boats.

  • I love it when ads use keywords from articles (Score:5, Funny)

    by VMaN ( 164134 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @08:51AM (#32563642) Homepage

    like this classic example

    http://www.ntk.net/2001/07/06/dohburn.gif [ntk.net]

    • That kind of thing happens a lot, actually, if you actually look at the ads. Mind you, keyword matching has never yet given me a single ad I was interested in, but I still occasionally look at the ads because of gems like these:

      - I'm looking up the lyrics of a goth kinda song, you know, about death and suicide, and it mentions eternal sleep. An ad on the side dutifully offers to sell me sleeping pills. (Not only morbid, but I really don't think that they want to become known as the company desperate enough

      • Re:Happens all the time, actually (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Captain Hook ( 923766 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:54AM (#32564412)

        Nobody is really offering a means to suicide are they. The problem with keyword matching on a webpage to a particular ad is that it's not context sensitive. That page had used the word sleep or even more likely 'eternal sleep' as a phrase and the highest paying match was for sleeping pills.

        And thats not even what the article is about. What you described is simple keyword matching of the webpage you are viewing. What the article is descibing is an ad system which has nothing to with the webpage you are visiting and everything to do with you and your previous web browsing habits. For example, you browse information on unwanted pregenacy on one page, then a few days later on a car selling site you get an ad for aborbtion clinics.

        • Yeah, I know. The actual post I was answering to was about keyword matching, though, and I answered to _that_.

          To answer your point, though, well, that's why you have some control over the cookies in your browser. Unlike many other privacy problems on the Internet, this is trivial to solve. Simply disallow third party cookies and block Google and some of the other egregious unrepentant trackers from storing any persistent cookies at all in your browser. Problem solved.

        • The problem with keyword matching on a webpage to a particular ad is that it's not context sensitive.

          On the contrary, that's what gave us these masterpieces of unintended comedy.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by axx ( 1000412 )

        Similar thing happened to me.

        I was reading through an animal rights related newsletter, and Gmail's contextual advertisement located at the top of the screen thought it matched pretty well this offer for a second hand pig slaughter machine.
        Up to 45 pigs an hour!

        Nice.

      • Then there's words that mean different things in different languages. You're no doubt familiar with "Gift" [vqronline.org].

  • Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bsDaemon ( 87307 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @08:55AM (#32563672)

    About the time I added "Brooks Brothers" to my 'interests' sections on Facebook and started getting Brooks Brothers ads on every website that I visited after that, is when I started to feel violated. Not sure why FB kept trying to sell me Jewish dating websites, when my profile clearly indicated that I was not Jewish... an Anglo-Norman name, 'Zen Buddhist' as my religion... seems like they missed the mark with that one. However, now I just run ABP and I don't ever have to see ads anymore either, and I took out nearly all the information from my FB profile. I'd just get rid of it if not for the fact it's my main method of keeping in contact with a lot of people I'm actually kind of fond of. It still feels very stalkerish.

    • Re:Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mad Merlin ( 837387 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:02AM (#32563758) Homepage

      ...and I took out nearly all the information from my FB profile.

      Don't worry, it's still stored permanently.

      • Re:Well, no shit (Score:5, Informative)

        by Sir_Lewk ( 967686 ) <sirlewkNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:38AM (#32564198)

        If you are planning to 'remove' your data from facebook, don't simply 'delete' your account. Slowly over a period of about a month or so replace all of your data with incorrect data. Things that are unlikely to change like your sex should probably stay the same until the very end so it doesn't raise any red flags, but by the time you are finished everything should be different. Then 'delete' your account.

        The idea being that of course they are not actually going to delete anything, but at least this way they don't know what is truthful and what isn't.

        • I don't use social networks (no friends) but i assumed the information would all be false, or at least flattering, anyway.

          • Well true enough. I guess the idea is mainly to make it useless as well. What people put down as their interests (music, movies, etc) is likely to be the most valuable information facebook can get.

        • Re:Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)

          by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:58AM (#32564456) Homepage

          > Slowly over a period of about a month or so replace all of your data with
          > incorrect data.

          Why would you ever put any correct data in to begin with, except for stuff that is already a matter of public record or that you see no reason keep private?

          Even if Facebook could be trusted to keep your secrets your "friends" cannot.
           

          • Don't ask me, but judging by the number of people I know that at one point did have facebooks, but have recently 'deleted' their accounts, I'm guessing many people do.

          • Because some people actually use social networking sites for real social networking. Some people actually want accurate information about them shared with others. Now i don't happen to be one of those people, but I know quite a few of them.

          • Yeah - what's especially creepy is Facebook having "virtual" profiles of people who haven't even joined, due to their friends sending you join requests (so Facebook have your email plus your circle of friends and can probably guess a lot just by your friends preferences, details etc. - nevermind photos that may have you in them).

            I wonder if they do in fact keep separate records for people who they know "exist" but haven't joined?

            Anyway, the join requests with "you may also know Person X, Y, Z" (and yes, you

        • How about this: Don't put any real data in something like Facebook in the first place!

      • Exactly. And A simple basic understanding of physics of bitspace should have told you that:
        There is no such thing as deleting. There is overwriting. Overwriting the link to it in the directory. Or overwriting the actual data.

        So if you want something to be gone, write something else in place, and forget about it.
        Has been my policy for a long time.

        Caveat: Watch out for things that keep a change log / history.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xgr3gx ( 1068984 )

      Yeah, it does feel stalkerish, and very fake.
      I love when I see ads that say - "Are you a 30 year old systems engineer who is also father of 2 children and enjoys the outdoors? Find out how you can get over $500 in Providence, RI area coupons!"
      Ah, so close, looks like they got the Geo-IP wrong.

      • Speaking of Geo-IP, why do they assume every Comcast IP in Illinois is Chicago (specifically Naperville)? It's like they are unaware that there is anything but Chicago in IL. Ah, well, if the politicians in my state can make the same mistake, maybe I can forgive the marketers too.
        (don't rile me about being a Comcast customer, not like I had a choice. Sympathy though, is highly appreciated)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bsDaemon ( 87307 )

          I think it has to do more with up-stream registration of the IP blocks. My office is in VA Beach, and we have fractional DS3 over Cavalier/Verizon, maintain our own border routers, announce our own routes over BGP, etc. All that good stuff. the other end of our leased line is in Norfolk, and that's where the /24 on that link was registered, so any time I visit a GeoIP-enabled site from the office, it claims I'm in Norfolk.

          the aggregation point for Comcast in IL is probably in this Naperville place.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by bickerdyke ( 670000 )

      Not sure why FB kept trying to sell me Jewish dating websites, when my profile clearly indicated that I was not Jewish... an Anglo-Norman name, 'Zen Buddhist' as my religion... seems like they missed the mark with that one

      That creeps me out even more!

      (Not the religion-centered dating sites. Those too, but just a little)

      Showing me less, but better targeted ads should be a win-win situation. (Sometimes you don't mind spending money on something you saw in an ad)

      But beeing presented with not just a random ad, but with an ad and the knowledge that someone thinks you would be intrested in it clearly is something different.

      Might lead to this little gem...
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/quotes?qt0367869 [imdb.com]

      • Showing me less, but better targeted ads should be a win-win situation.

        That will never happen. Marketeers don't understand the concept of moderation and believe everyone wants to drink from a fire hose of ads all day long.

        • I think it's more like "the few that actually do don't last in the business very long". I do agree though, that it seems like every day we're inching closer to a future eerily close to the one depicted in Wall-E.

          What bothers me the most though is when sites that I *DO* pay for start pulling this targeted ad crap. Earlier this year I signed up for eHarmony. spent $150 for the three month kitchen-sink plan...AND THERE WERE STILL ADS!!! What the heck? Conversely, virtually every website I went to started servi

    • You can work that to your advantage, I wondered why the commercials I saw on Hulu mostly featured hot women, closeup shots of their legs and other body parts, stretching, bending and doing exercise poses, fashionably adorned, until I double-checked my profile on Hulu and saw I'd clicked "female".

      Score!

      (If they start showing me sexy lingerie ads, I might even click the "is this ad relevant to you" yes box.)

  • Privacy... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by iScotty ( 1796334 )
    Lol, privacy on the internet, come on consumers.

    • Re:Privacy... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ThosLives ( 686517 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:39AM (#32564204) Journal

      Indeed! I'm still trying to figure out how to promote my campaign to educate people on a nice subtlety:

      Privacy: doing something that other people don't know about. This is inherently impossible on the internet, because in order to do anything on the internet, you have to send data to or from somewhere - someone else knows what you're doing.

      Anonymity: doing something but people don't know that it's you that's doing it. This is really what people are after, not privacy. People talk about "privacy" for many things, such as GPS for fuel tax in their cars, or speeding or whatever. The complaint there isn't privacy: anyone who has eyeballs can see that there is a car driving around. The complaint is anonymity: drivers don't want others to know that they are driving to a particular place or in a particular manner.

      So, please help fix this argument: the internet cannot ever have privacy, but please let's keep it anonymous! All the things like Facebook, etc. are inherently non-anonymous, because people are volunteering identifying information. I suppose there's an argument about protecting who has access to the identifying information, but that's a different facet of the argument.

  • No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stele ( 9443 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:03AM (#32563768) Homepage

    "Ever load up a completely random webpage to see an advertisement at the top for products related to what you're reading about?"

    No. Thanks Adblock!

  • Ever load up a completely random webpage to see an advertisement

    Not in many years.

  • Oblig XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:03AM (#32563790)

    http://xkcd.com/713/ [xkcd.com]

    I've always felt that these ads aren't just intrusive, they're -lying- to me. There isn't actually a ton of hot women in this town looking for a nerd to comfort them at night. It's ridiculous. In fact, for that scenario, there's -nowhere on earth-.

    It got to the point a few years ago where I just ignored anything that had the name of my town. Why? Because I found a 'news article' that said the writer was from my town. This confused the hell out of me, because it was extremely unlikely. Then I realized the 'article' was just a fake and was really an advertisement.

    • Re:Oblig XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ephemeriis ( 315124 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:18AM (#32563954)

      It got to the point a few years ago where I just ignored anything that had the name of my town. Why? Because I found a 'news article' that said the writer was from my town. This confused the hell out of me, because it was extremely unlikely. Then I realized the 'article' was just a fake and was really an advertisement.

      Yup.

      These days I assume that anything that looks too personal must be garbage. I live in a small town... Unless I'm reading the local paper, I'm not going to see references to anything that local. If I do, it must be some kind of geo-targeted advertising.

      Interesting how the hooks they use to try to get your attention have instead become keywords that signify that I can safely ignore something.

      • Even better was when I used my tethered cellphone as my broadband access several years ago, it showed up as two states over instead of anywhere near me, clearly highlighting what I had no interest in.

    • I've always felt that these ads aren't just intrusive, they're -lying- to me.

      Truly, it is a travesty that such a noble profession as advertising has fallen so far from its previously honest and forthright ways.

  • "Our results show privacy matters in something of a subtle way in online advertising," says Goldfarb. "Sometimes privacy violations are fine, sometimes they're not."
    Nice to see what costumers like to project onto consumer rights :)

  • The ones that get me (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    .. are the ones relating to nothing on the page you are currently on, but stuff you have recently been looking at.

    For instance, I just bought a puppy recently.. and quite frequently now I'll see ads for obedience training.. while looking at computer parts.

    I'm actually perfectly cool with how this is pulled off.. but it is still a little weird!

  • No! Really? Who would have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:15AM (#32563902)

    People do not like the idea that you come to their most private place, their home, unasked and uninvited, and try to force them to buy your junk. Who would have tought that they do not like that idea?

    Now, you say, ads have been our companions for decades, if not centuries. Why suddenly that rejection? We should be use to them by now. And yes, we are. But these ads are different.

    So far, we had ads that yelled at you, in the equivalent of a street hawker. He yells out what goods he has, come and get 'em! That's basically what TV and radio ads are like. They do not talk to YOU. They talk to, well, anyone listening. Targeted ads are more like the guy at your door trying to sell you some magazine subscription, only that he also happens to know a lot about you. He knows your hobbies and he offers you magazines related to your hobbies, with the undertone of "this has to interest you, I know it".

    And people don't like strangers to know their private details. Especially if those strangers try to sell them something.

    And people don't buy from people they don't like.

    • Re:No! Really? Who would have thought? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by L4t3r4lu5 ( 1216702 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @10:01AM (#32564502)

      People do not like the idea that you come to their most private place, their home, unasked and uninvited, and try to force them to buy your junk. Who would have tought that they do not like that idea?

      This is one of my major points when someone argues with me regarding the use of adblocking software.

      A door-to-door salesman comes to your hosue. Do you:
      a) Wait for him to finish his pitch and consider buying?
      b) Listen politely, tell him no thanks, be cordial?
      c) Slam the door in his face?

      If you answered other than c), now imagine that when you opened the door to let in a friend, the salesman walked in too. He is now walking around your living room looking at your furnishings, which cleaning products you use, inspecting your rubbish, and going through your underwear drawer reading all the labels. He's reading all of your receipts, checking out how often you buy sanitary products, and of which brand. In 3 days time, he'll come back with a truck full of flyers for products related to what he found out about you, and put them over every window, through your letterbox, in your mail (because he's affiliated with the post office) and your newspaper will now be 200 pages thick, 150 of them being adverts.

      Now, how about we install a peephole in your door so you know not to open it up when the salesman comes around? That's Adblock.

      • Nicely said, both of you. I'll use what you've said when I tell friends, family and coworkers about my own anti-advertising philosophy.

      • now imagine that when you opened the door to let in a friend, the salesman walked in too. He is now walking around your living room looking at your furnishings, which cleaning products you use, inspecting your rubbish [...] , how about we install a peephole in your door so you know not to open it up when the salesman comes around? That's Adblock.

        And leave your friend outside with the salesman? That's cold, dude.

        • And leave your friend outside with the salesman? That's cold, dude.

          "Might you, or anyone you know, be interested in fully automatic sidearms?"

          :).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )

        That salesman paid for your friend's visit.

      • That's funny, ever since I was doing a remodeling project I haven't been getting targeted ads. I was shopping for 2x4s, sledge hammer, rubber tubing, concrete mix. Not sure why they didn't have anything to hock at me.

  • Ever tried to search for something linux related, and found tens of mailing list aggregation sites, each one differing from others slightly, but mostly in URL and placement and quantity of AdSense ads?

    Is there some way to blacklist such sites and share blacklist info through some firefox extension?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      Almost as irritating are the shopping sites that sell the same products, at the same prices, with the same inventory, but different site names and slightly different layouts or colour schemes for the stores. It's highly irritating when you search for a particular product, and have to wade through all of those.

      Best I can tell, these sites operate from one place (looks like Florida), but have "operators" all over, whose contribution is to take orders by phone and pass them on to the "parent" store.

      Because of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Timmmm ( 636430 )

      That's a good idea. There are recommendation sites for music (last.fm), films (filmaster.com) and so on. There should be an equivalent for search results. I.e. if you blacklist expertsexchange and scribd, then it finds other people who did the same and uses their preferences to modify your search results.

      Google had a thing where you could delete search results for a while, but I don't know if it did anything like that and it seems to have disappeared.

    • http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/ [givemebackmygoogle.com]

      Google, without affiliate links. (Also skims a lot of aggregator sites)

  • Ha (Score:4, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:16AM (#32563918)

    Back in the '90s everyone surfed nekkid, and you didn't have to worry about them guessing the green denim jacket.

    • What do you mean, back in the ’90s??
      *scratches balls in a comically overexaggerated way, while making a fitting grimace*

  • I actually like ads to be catered to my tastes, it seems like a more useful use of screen real estate. So if there was some sort of central repository, say Google, that housed what ads fit my shopping habits, I'd be for it. However then there are the cons. I don't really want them sending me ads for things that might be private. So I searched something for a health concern, I need to be able to remove that from my "ad profile". But if they want to show me ads for all the new video games coming out, thi

    • Re:For and Against... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @10:22AM (#32564738) Homepage Journal

      I actually like ads to be catered to my tastes, it seems like a more useful use of screen real estate.

      Years ago, I worked doing p-shop for advertising, and my boss taught me something important about marketing: The people paying for the ads want those ads to go to peope who aren't already interested. They want to reach people who have no interest in the product, and to alter their minds.

      It's a waste of money to pitch to someone who's already sold. In other words, advertisers want to advertise to you the opposite of what you want.

      • Re:For and Against... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Monday June 14, 2010 @01:01PM (#32566958) Homepage

        Yeah, I think this is very important. I worked in advertising briefly, and it creeped me out. The way advertisers see their jobs is not how most people understand advertisers' jobs.

        So here's a funny thing that many of you don't realize: you probably want to see some ads. I only really realized this until I cancelled my cable (Netflix only) and had been using Adblock for months. I realized that I had no idea what was going on. New products were being released, new movies were in theaters, and I didn't know these things existed. I wanted to know that they existed. I wanted to buy some of those products and see some of those movies.

        So I really started thinking about advertising, and specifically targeted advertising. I thought about how I kind of wish there was a site that I could go to what would tell me about all the things that I was missing by not seeing ads.

        So I wanted to learn about all of these things, but I wanted to learn about these things on my own terms, I wanted to look at the ads that I wanted to see, and not other ads. I wanted to look at them on my own schedule. I wanted to skip any ad that I didn't like. And that seemed totally reasonable to me, because in my mind an advertiser should be looking to connect me with information about products that I might want to buy.

        And then I remembered: That's not how advertisers see their jobs. Advertisers specifically do not want you to learn about anything on your own terms. They want to control the whole setup so that they can push you into buying products that you don't really want. Advertisers are not happy allowing you to watch the ads you want to watch, they are only happy when they force you to watch an ad that you don't want to watch.

        And what really drove this home for me was trying to watch movie trailers on YouTube, and YouTube was making me watch an ad before each movie trailer. It took me a second to remember that movie trailers are themselves advertisements. YouTube was forcing me to watch and ad that I didn't want before they'd let me watch the ad I wanted to watch.

        What it comes down to is this: It'd be great if we could match entertaining and informative advertisements up with people who would like to see those ads. There are advertisers who will try to do this. However, advertisers are generally employed by people who want to sell crap to people who don't really want that crap. As long as that's the case, advertisers will try to push you ads that you don't want to see.

  • I am finding it kind of annoying/spooky that the same ad seems to follow me around to different websites via DoubleClick. Yes I was looking up information on stock photography, now stop showing me the exact same ad twenty billion times on 50 different websites. I am not going to click it.

  • Woman enjoy your inflamed meat pole (Score:5, Funny)

    by blue l0g1c ( 1007517 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:36AM (#32564176)

    I remember the feeling of paranoia wash over me when I first began receiving the penis enlargement emails.

    The paranoia has returned, but mostly because of the herky-jerky ads showing pictures of my penis and the names of ex-girlfriends.

    You guys getting those?

  • Pandora (Score:4, Funny)

    by phrostie ( 121428 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:38AM (#32564196)

    i've been noticing this on Pandora.
    i'll glance down at my iphone and notice adds that are just way too taylored to either me or the song.

    the creepy part is when i send an email to a friend saying i need new trim and to repaint parts of my house, then start getting adds for house paint.

    the funny one was when listening to pink floyd's the wall, and they starts adds for a new private school for my kids shortly after the line, "Teacher, leave those kids alone".

    but yeah, they've long past up creepy.

  • They'll know when they cross the line... or rather, they'll find out...

    I remember browsing Amazon for wheel rims at some point, and one of the suggestions for "other people who viewed this product also bought" was a fleshlight, picture and all. Needless to say, I stopped browsing wheel rims... didn't want to become associated with one of those people :-P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by glwtta ( 532858 )
      one of the suggestions for "other people who viewed this product also bought" was a fleshlight, picture and all. Needless to say, I stopped browsing wheel rims...

      I take it you started browsing fleshlights?

  • For those who use AdBlockers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VShael ( 62735 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @09:42AM (#32564240) Journal

    and a blacklisted hosts file, or whatever, just a word of warning.

    Be prepared the next time you browse the web on a strangers machine, or a public machine.
    It happened to me recently, and it scared the crap out of me. Adverts EVERYWHERE and some of them were shouting at me.

    I would liken it to a BBC viewer having to sit through American cable television for an hour.

    It's not pleasant.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thijsh ( 910751 )
      That's why American TV now has warning labels: WARNING: may induce loss of apatite, vomiting, apathy, temporary blindness, unwanted pregnancy, or in case of BBC-viewers a high risk of severe brain hemorrhages!.
      • Emphais mine:

        That's why American TV now has warning labels: WARNING: may induce loss of apatite, vomiting, apathy,

        I had no idea TV could cause loss of phosphate minerals. This is serious!

        What other minerals is TV leaching from our bodies? I shudder to think that watching the World Cup may be depleting my body of hardystonite or some other mineral!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by thijsh ( 910751 )
          Hehe, fucking spelling-correct... you type 'apetite' and expect the thing to figure out you meant 'appetite'... Guess i'll have to grab a real dictionary next time when translating warning labels from the TV.
          On a related note: the WK will probably cost you some minerals, but most likely a lot of Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, and Magnesium... (saw that on another warning label just now, next to the: 'Fifa is not liable for heart-failure').

  • About a month ago I went to the Serif web site to read about their DrawPlus software. Since then, I'd estimate that around 25% of web sites I visit have an advert of some kind for DrawPlus.

    Now, I assume this is cookie-related. But who baked the cookie? Maybe it was Serif. Maybe it was Google, because I used Google to search for DrawPlus. But it feels a little creepy when you look at a product once and then get nagged to buy it all the time.

  • How about when you share a computer, like my wife and I do? We don't close the other person's session, we just open a new tab. I almost wish didn't run adblock. What demographic does titanium billet, computer parts, + (whatever girly stuff my wife is into at the time) put you in?

    Nevermind, I'm on Slashdot. Duh!

  • Are you lonely?
    Have you spent half your life in bars pursuing sins of the flesh?
    Are you sitting in a bean bag chair naked eating Cheetos?
    Do you have the urge to get up and send me a thousand dollars?

    • CLOSE! For a minute there, I thought you were talking to me. I guess I am not the only Cheetos lover who likes bean bag chairs.

  • I was looking for replacement temple pads for a pair of glasses. Now I get sidebar ads about eyeglasses, sunglasses, precriptions, Lasix, you name it. I'm not a candidate for Lasix, but the ads keep coming. I found the pads, but the ads keep coming. I even have new glasses coming, but the ads also keep coming.

    I was looking for a new electric shaver. Guess what ads are coming up now? No, not shavers for the blind, but close.

    It is apparent that anything you search for more than once seems to come up as

  • Having an argument through gmail.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Orga ( 1720130 ) on Monday June 14, 2010 @10:53AM (#32565118)
    I remember finding it a bit creepy/amusing when I was having an argument through gmail with my ex and ads for counseling and relationship therapy were appearing.
  • Wait a few months and it'll go away. Consumers on the internet get used to any invasion of privacy really fast these days.
  • [flickr.com]

    That's what popped up in the RSS feed item for the article.
  • Thanks to Track-me-not, I lead the market demographic for Green Wasabi Thimble Machines.
    Oh sure, it violates Google TOS. I weep not.
    http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/ [nyu.edu]
    You have to go into the plugin and manually enable it fyi.

  • Huh? There are ads on the net?

    What are ads again?

    — An AdBlock Plus user.

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