4 ms·

How does Google link the real life person who bought Voltaren at a store to the online account or fingerprint that browses the Internet?

vbsteven 5y ago
I don’t think Google linked the account directly to the purchase. My guess would be that Google linked the account to the medication based on patterns from one of its many ways it gathers data. * visits to websites about that medication * visits to websites talking about symptoms for which the medication helps * searches for the above * I would not be surprised if Google picks up interests from other accounts using the same WiFi (or even other devices on close proximity) * there are some scary stories about Google/FB/Amazon listening to conversations
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  So, then, completely different from what the GP suggested.
  - vbsteven 5y ago
    My comment was an expansion on GPs second bullet point. It’s not Google that knows about the purchase, but Google that “somehow” picked up contextual info from OPs environment linking OPs online identity to Voltaren as a product. Edit: the purchase could have been involved somewhere in the chain but it’s not necessary.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      > Your purchase landed some key about you in a bucket that was mixed and repackaged with many other keys that the advertiser knows as "keys recently interested in Voltaren." There's not really that much ambiguity in this sentence from the second bullet point. Unless my mental model of online advertising is wrong, your physical in-store purchase should not be landing you in some Google advertising bucket.
      - vbsteven 5y ago
        I completely agree that they should not show up. It looks like I went lightly over that sentence and focussed more on the one after: > Some of those keys are related to people who bought it, or who searched for it, or more indirectly who lingered while reading a page with an ad for it...and in most cases are very short lived.
- nextos 5y ago
  I think it's the last option. His phone probably heard him ordering Voltaren. It's also the simplest possibility (Ockham's razor). I know because after discussing extremely rare chemicals at an officemate's desk, he began seeing ads for them. Neither of us had ever Googled or emailed anything related. It was a brand new idea for a brand new project which we had started working on that morning.
  - planb 5y ago
    This is not the simplest possibility. Based on how often Google Home misunderstands the simplest queries, the tech is nowhere close to getting purchase intents out of random conversations. Besides that - do folks on hn really believe the „our phones are listening 24/7“ conspiracy theories?
    - planb 5y ago
      I scrolled down further in the thread and it seems they do...
    - 6510 5y ago
      We don't want to believe but here we are. [ha, ha] Our robotic overlords don't even need to be sure, sounds-like is good enough, apply some exotic filters and odds to sell things go though the roof. My funniest was talking with someone at work (who works for a different company) then when I got home facebook suggested adding them. That I didn't have a phone at the time made it extra comical. Plenty of other people work there, it never suggested those and there are no common contacts. How the CONSPIRACY works exactly I have no idea, the candidate theories are all to hard to imagine. (Like, I'm easy to track because I have no phone?)
    - NoPie 5y ago
      I believe it is very possible. My android phone often asks how did I like this or that shop. Sometimes I was just passing by those shops but on average the phone is quite correct which shops I have visited. Google knows when you are in the pharmacy and might use a different routine interpreting ambient sounds when you are there. Voltarol (ibuprofen gel) is a distinct sound that even very lossy algorithm with low level of processing power can distinguish with a sufficient level of accuracy.
- muzani 5y ago
  I do most searches in an incognito window so it can't be browser history. In some cases, it's even something like my wife joking about selling the car to a friend on WhatsApp, and suddenly Facebook show ads where you can sell the car. One time I told my wife to buy something at the grocery store (verbally, no text) and FB shows me the ad for that exact item.
  - vsl 5y ago
    Anecdotes like this are plausibly explained as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
  - xtracto 5y ago
    We had a similar thing happening to us: Wife and I have no kids and have no plans to have them. Kid related stuff is just not part of our everyday interactions. One day we visit some friend who are a couple with kids and in that visit we TALK about babies and rising kids and whatnot. Next day my wife (who has the FB app Installed), starts getting kid's diapers ads. I dont have FB app and I dont get those ads. She uninstalled the app after that.
  - vbsteven 5y ago
    > I do most searches in an incognito window so it can't be browser history. Incognito mode is mostly a convenience for you to do browsing without saving local history or cookies. It doesn't stop tracking. I assume the fingerprint is different in incognito versus a regular window. But unless you are using VPN/adblockers/pihole/etc your browser is still executing third party JS and potentially sending tracking data to google using a plain https connection coming from your residential IP. I can imagine it's not that hard for Google to link different requests from the same IP with slightly different fingerprint data to be coming from the same user. edit: and for searches it is even easier, because you are communicating directly with google by performing the search, no tracker or JS necessary.
reaperducer 5y ago
How does Google link the real life person who bought Voltaren at a store to the online account or fingerprint that browses the Internet? Often, through the payment. People use the same payment methods in the same stores over and over. This data is accumulated by the stores, and sold. if you signed up for a "points card" or some other gimmick to get 2¢ off something, the personal information you used when you signed up is added to the profile. What you bought in the store is added to your profile (within legal limits in certain jurisdictions). Some stores have devices that listen to your mobile phone's identifiers (wifi, Bluetooth, etc) and add that to your profile. Now the data profilers know what other stores you shop in. Some stores are experimenting with facial recognition (Walgreens). That gets added to your profile. If you go to several in a single day, your route between the stores can be guessed. If you go to one or more places (stores, parking garages, streets that pass parking lots) that have sensors that read the NFC chips in your car's tires, then that can be added to your profile. Now they know everywhere you go, everywhere you shop, everything you buy, how much you buy, how much you spend, your race, your gender, how you dress, what brands are displayed on your clothing, and any visible hair, moles, or tattoos. That's just off the top of my head. And people wonder, "Wow. I am a little scruffy. How did Facebook know to show me an ad for a razor?"
- worik 5y ago
  Hmmm.... Use cash!
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Use cash! It's a start. But unfortunately, doesn't get you out of a lot of the other surveillance methods. Also, paying cash is yet another bit of entropy. Like using Firefox.
    - worik 5y ago
      "Also, paying cash is yet another bit of entropy. Like using Firefox. " I do not understand. I am typing this on Firefox. Felling the low entropy vibe!
  - 5y ago
kube-system 5y ago
There's a lot of online marketing companies that do a lot of work in this area. It's pretty easy to do if you have any kind of ID or token to link the data. It can be done with credit card numbers, a phone's location services, membership programs, coupons, etc. Here's some of the stuff Facebook does, which just scratches the surface of what is possible: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1150627594978290 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1150627594978290

vbsteven 5y ago

I don’t think Google linked the account directly to the purchase. My guess would be that Google linked the account to the medication based on patterns from one of its many ways it gathers data. * visits to websites about that medication * visits to websites talking about symptoms for which the medication helps * searches for the above * I would not be surprised if Google picks up interests from other accounts using the same WiFi (or even other devices on close proximity) * there are some scary stories about Google/FB/Amazon listening to conversations

whimsicalism 5y ago
So, then, completely different from what the GP suggested.
- vbsteven 5y ago
  My comment was an expansion on GPs second bullet point. It’s not Google that knows about the purchase, but Google that “somehow” picked up contextual info from OPs environment linking OPs online identity to Voltaren as a product. Edit: the purchase could have been involved somewhere in the chain but it’s not necessary.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > Your purchase landed some key about you in a bucket that was mixed and repackaged with many other keys that the advertiser knows as "keys recently interested in Voltaren." There's not really that much ambiguity in this sentence from the second bullet point. Unless my mental model of online advertising is wrong, your physical in-store purchase should not be landing you in some Google advertising bucket.
    - vbsteven 5y ago
      I completely agree that they should not show up. It looks like I went lightly over that sentence and focussed more on the one after: > Some of those keys are related to people who bought it, or who searched for it, or more indirectly who lingered while reading a page with an ad for it...and in most cases are very short lived.
nextos 5y ago
I think it's the last option. His phone probably heard him ordering Voltaren. It's also the simplest possibility (Ockham's razor). I know because after discussing extremely rare chemicals at an officemate's desk, he began seeing ads for them. Neither of us had ever Googled or emailed anything related. It was a brand new idea for a brand new project which we had started working on that morning.
- planb 5y ago
  This is not the simplest possibility. Based on how often Google Home misunderstands the simplest queries, the tech is nowhere close to getting purchase intents out of random conversations. Besides that - do folks on hn really believe the „our phones are listening 24/7“ conspiracy theories?
  - planb 5y ago
    I scrolled down further in the thread and it seems they do...
  - 6510 5y ago
    We don't want to believe but here we are. [ha, ha] Our robotic overlords don't even need to be sure, sounds-like is good enough, apply some exotic filters and odds to sell things go though the roof. My funniest was talking with someone at work (who works for a different company) then when I got home facebook suggested adding them. That I didn't have a phone at the time made it extra comical. Plenty of other people work there, it never suggested those and there are no common contacts. How the CONSPIRACY works exactly I have no idea, the candidate theories are all to hard to imagine. (Like, I'm easy to track because I have no phone?)
  - NoPie 5y ago
    I believe it is very possible. My android phone often asks how did I like this or that shop. Sometimes I was just passing by those shops but on average the phone is quite correct which shops I have visited. Google knows when you are in the pharmacy and might use a different routine interpreting ambient sounds when you are there. Voltarol (ibuprofen gel) is a distinct sound that even very lossy algorithm with low level of processing power can distinguish with a sufficient level of accuracy.
muzani 5y ago
I do most searches in an incognito window so it can't be browser history. In some cases, it's even something like my wife joking about selling the car to a friend on WhatsApp, and suddenly Facebook show ads where you can sell the car. One time I told my wife to buy something at the grocery store (verbally, no text) and FB shows me the ad for that exact item.
- vsl 5y ago
  Anecdotes like this are plausibly explained as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
- xtracto 5y ago
  We had a similar thing happening to us: Wife and I have no kids and have no plans to have them. Kid related stuff is just not part of our everyday interactions. One day we visit some friend who are a couple with kids and in that visit we TALK about babies and rising kids and whatnot. Next day my wife (who has the FB app Installed), starts getting kid's diapers ads. I dont have FB app and I dont get those ads. She uninstalled the app after that.
- vbsteven 5y ago
  > I do most searches in an incognito window so it can't be browser history. Incognito mode is mostly a convenience for you to do browsing without saving local history or cookies. It doesn't stop tracking. I assume the fingerprint is different in incognito versus a regular window. But unless you are using VPN/adblockers/pihole/etc your browser is still executing third party JS and potentially sending tracking data to google using a plain https connection coming from your residential IP. I can imagine it's not that hard for Google to link different requests from the same IP with slightly different fingerprint data to be coming from the same user. edit: and for searches it is even easier, because you are communicating directly with google by performing the search, no tracker or JS necessary.

reaperducer 5y ago

How does Google link the real life person who bought Voltaren at a store to the online account or fingerprint that browses the Internet? Often, through the payment. People use the same payment methods in the same stores over and over. This data is accumulated by the stores, and sold. if you signed up for a "points card" or some other gimmick to get 2¢ off something, the personal information you used when you signed up is added to the profile. What you bought in the store is added to your profile (within legal limits in certain jurisdictions). Some stores have devices that listen to your mobile phone's identifiers (wifi, Bluetooth, etc) and add that to your profile. Now the data profilers know what other stores you shop in. Some stores are experimenting with facial recognition (Walgreens). That gets added to your profile. If you go to several in a single day, your route between the stores can be guessed. If you go to one or more places (stores, parking garages, streets that pass parking lots) that have sensors that read the NFC chips in your car's tires, then that can be added to your profile. Now they know everywhere you go, everywhere you shop, everything you buy, how much you buy, how much you spend, your race, your gender, how you dress, what brands are displayed on your clothing, and any visible hair, moles, or tattoos. That's just off the top of my head. And people wonder, "Wow. I am a little scruffy. How did Facebook know to show me an ad for a razor?"

worik 5y ago
Hmmm.... Use cash!
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Use cash! It's a start. But unfortunately, doesn't get you out of a lot of the other surveillance methods. Also, paying cash is yet another bit of entropy. Like using Firefox.
  - worik 5y ago
    "Also, paying cash is yet another bit of entropy. Like using Firefox. " I do not understand. I am typing this on Firefox. Felling the low entropy vibe!
- 5y ago

kube-system 5y ago

There's a lot of online marketing companies that do a lot of work in this area. It's pretty easy to do if you have any kind of ID or token to link the data. It can be done with credit card numbers, a phone's location services, membership programs, coupons, etc. Here's some of the stuff Facebook does, which just scratches the surface of what is possible: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1150627594978290 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1150627594978290