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Facebook doesn't need to be open in a tab for it to know it was you on that site, and you don't even need to be signed in. You and your computers are connected,
by Bedon292 10y ago
Facebook doesn't need to be open in a tab for it to know it was you on that site, and you don't even need to be signed in. You and your computers are connected, even if you think you are careful.
If you have ever signed into FB from home, they know that machine / ip / whatever fingerprint is you. Even after you sign out, its still out. Even if you are in ingocnito mode, its still probably you. Then you sign in to FB at work, and now the same thing happens. They may not know the specific computer, but they know the network you are connected to IP wise.
This happens across many different ad networks, and they are all connected to sell ads targeting the people something wants. If you leave a potential purchase not bough, and sometimes even when you do buy it, ads are going to make it back to 'you'. They may not know 100% that it is you, but they can cast a net to try and find you. And for something like a missed sale, its worth the cost.
Note it may not be targeting you specifically. It may just be closer to: Someone in this VERY specific demographic looked for this instrument, oh hey here is someone else that meets that same demographic on this other ad network. Lets try them.
The amount of tracking on the internet nowadays is absolutely crazy. Visit practically any website, and all the major players are going to know about it and add it to their profile of you.
- masukomi 10y agoas someone who used to work for a targeted advertising co i can confirm that, overall, this is pretty accurate. And, nearly a decade ago we were doing work to connect fingerprint x and fingerprint y when they were actually the same person (usually on different computers or maybe in incognito). Conceptually it wasn't hard. People tend behave the same way regardless of what computer they're on. I'd be VERY surprised to hear that Google hasn't made a ton of progress in connecting fingerprints
- throwgoogle123 10y agoI work on ads at Google. As far as I know we don't connect users who are not logged in out of piracy concern.
- Clanan 10y agoThose pirates can be quite vengeful!
- an_account 10y agoFrom people I've talked to at Facebook, they are much less concerned about similar privacy issues.
- hedora 10y agoI don't think this is true, or maybe it means something different when you take the colloquial meaning of what you said. (Maybe "connect" has a precise technical meaning at google.) I get targeted ads from google all the time when logged out, even on machines where I have never logged in. There seems to be correlation between targeting on multiple devices until I nuke all the cookies, etc. Maybe you mean you only tie my profile to my real name and employer() while I am logged in? Or maybe there are N profiles tied to each machine, and one is "logged out but probably owned by a similar / the same person as these other machines". () We use google's office suite instead of microsoft at work, leading to hilarious privacy snafus.
- throwgoogle123 10y agoI wasn't playing any word games. There seems to be correlation between targeting on multiple devices until I nuke all the cookies, etc. Do you have a specific example? Was this on a Google property (search, youtube, gmail) or on a third party site? Are you sure that those ads came from Google? Is it possible that we just identified both of your cookies as a user who is interested in topic X without linking them?
- stvswn 10y agoGoogle targets ads to signed-out users (if they consent, have cookies enabled, etc.), but they are careful not to join the fingerprint of a signed-out user with the fingerprint of a signed-in user. In other words, when you're signed out, ads can follow you around, but in the network it should seem like you are a different user from your signed-in version. This way, signing out has a consequence.
- sundaeofshock 10y agoIP Tracking is not enough to get an individual. They can get a household or business that way. They can track you by your specific browser signature: combo of user agent, plugins, etc. Which is why I like to use a browser dedicated to social media. I also have a computer provided by my employer as well as my own personal device. This helps a lot.
- mxvzr 10y agoCross browser fingerprinting is also a thing (system fonts, exotic screen resolutions, AudioContext & canvas/webgl quirks, number of cpus, ...). At this point you either need to disable javascript or take your browsing to a VM if you worry about fingerprinting.
- colordrops 10y agoAnd a VM is probably not enough if the plugins you install or even just your behaviors are similar.
- netsharc 10y ago> If you have ever signed into FB from home, they know that machine / ip / whatever fingerprint is you. Even after you sign out, its still out. Even if you signed out, they probably still have a cookie tracking who you are, and when your browser fetches that Like button, it will still send that cookie to the Facebook server. It'd be interesting on a shared computer where 2 people (e.g. a brother and sister) log in to FB alternatively, but I guess they can still distinguish who is who (e.g. person visits gaming forum, person visits this product page, person visits page with pics of a female supermodel: presumably it's the brother visiting all 3 sites. It's a bit sexist but that's what the algorithm would guess.)
- mxvzr 10y ago> Even if you signed out, they probably still have a cookie tracking who you are Indeed: https://www.nikcub.com/posts/logging-out-of-facebook-is-not-enough/ https://www.nikcub.com/posts/logging-out-of-facebook-is-not-...
- ramshanker 10y ago2 people sharing same computer has amazing effects on those trackers. My YouTube recommendations used to be awesome to my interests till I was single, Now it's all polluted and mostly useless after I married. ;)
- discreditable 10y agoSame here. My recommendations used to be video games and tech. Now I'm seeing tons of cat videos and gardening.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y agoMaybe youtube took a more expansive view of tech?
- georgeecollins 10y agoThe strange thing is sometimes I learn things about my wife from the ads that are served. Creepy.
- ramshanker 10y agoIt has happened so many times that I searched something on Amazon, and next day onwards, I get advertisement for Amazon on Facebook application showing exactly same product. I just wonder, who is paying for that advertisement!
- passivepinetree 10y agoWould using an extension such as Ghostery prevent this?
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoGhostery can't be trusted. Noscript + self destructing cookies.
- passivepinetree 10y agoWhy do you say that Ghostery can't be trusted? I'm a big fan of Noscript, but could you explain more about self-destructing cookies?
- noir_lord 10y agoSelf destructing cookies are ones that are destroyed at session end or when the browser is closed. It stops the Visit Foo, Foo sets a cookie, You go visit Bar, then Fizz, Fizz has a tracker from Foo which gets the cookie problem (at least partially). Where it gets interesting is when Foo, Bar, Fizz and Buzz all have trackers in some form or another and co-operate. Privacy is pretty much dead at this point without extreme effort.
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