https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/google-tracking-credit-card-data-advertisers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/google-tracking-cred... -- that's f

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/google-tracking-credit-card-data-advertisers https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/google-tracking-cred... -- that's from a quick Google search. Even though the article says "secretly" etc...there is really no conspiracy theory-like secret to this and it's well-known that everyone sells data to whomever they can make money from. It's more like what user jonahbenton has explained in another comment. The makers of Voltaren are able to broadly advertise to anyone who might be interested in Voltaren -- they don't know specific users. But Google (or any other advertising provider) has access to info on who might be interested in Voltaren at present -- which might be decided based on various factors including your credit-card purchase data. If Google does wants to dig down, they probably can use various info to drill down to you specifically and that is what makes people rightly uncomfortable, but what I am trying to say is that in general they are not specifically targeting you for the ad -- but a broad category/bucket of "people who might be interested in Voltaren at present". One might say it is the same thing...