4 ms·

To be fair, Facebook isn't the only ad network filled with dodgy ads. Matt Cutts wouldn't have to look far to find other similar "scams".

• Alex3917 16y ago
  What I really like is when I'm showing my friends a YouTube video and suddenly there's a pop-up with my health information.
  • ajju 16y ago
    Are you serious? Got an example?
    • w1ntermute 16y ago
      If he doesn't want his friends to see his health information, I don't think he'd feel comfortable linking to a screenshot of it showing up on YouTube...
      • ajju 16y ago
        Maybe I could have been more clear. I was asking for a detailed description of what he saw, not a screenshot.
    • Alex3917 16y ago
      I don't have a screen shot, but I do get text pop-ups from Google on top of my YouTube videos with things from my search history. For example, "Is leg pain a problem in your life? Go to [...]." (This actually happened.) Just yesterday I got one from SpecialTeas.com which said something like "We miss you at SpecialTeas, please come back." The point is that it's not cool to be showing someone a YouTube video and then all of a sudden not only are there ads showing up based on my search history, but the ads are actually incorporating my search strings and purchase history directly into their text. Especially when these have to do with personal issues, medical problems, etc. Is there anyone here who wouldn't be uncomfortable if they were in a movie theater with their family and friends and all then without any warning they suddenly started projecting your Google history and credit card purchase history from the last 5+ years? (Both of the examples listed were drawing on searches I had done 3 to 7 years previously.)
      • DevX101 16y ago
        At least it wasn't a Valtrex ad.
      • w1ntermute 16y ago
        Not sure how you'd do this, but there's probably a way to prevent your Google cookies from being sent to YouTube at the browser level. It'd be an ugly hack, but a usable one nonetheless.
      • deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      • ajju 16y ago
        Interesting. I hadn't noticed any ads on youtube so closely related to my search history, so it was a bit surprising.
  • blackysky 16y ago
    that's beyound crazy ... a simple health ad maybe but with personal information it's beyound crazy... do you have an example ... the url from that AD
  • mortenjorck 16y ago
    I was taken aback somewhat when a "Hey PlentyOfFish user, log back in today!" banner popped up over a video. I didn't log back in that day, and decided to stop doing so.
    • ohashi 16y ago
      That's just retargetting, quite common.
      • Matt_Cutts 16y ago
        ohashi beat me to it. That's almost certainly a website that you've visited using retargetting. More info: http://www.bizreport.com/2010/03/google_adwords_finally_gets_retargeting_capability.html http://www.bizreport.com/2010/03/google_adwords_finally_gets... . Article starts out "While Yahoo, ValueClick and other ad networks have offered ad retargeting for some time, Google has only just released it to their AdWords customers after twelve months in beta."
• brudgers 16y ago
  Right, it's not as if Google ever tried to get me to install their toolbar in my browser so far this week.