From Twitter:

I'm back from a week at my mom's house and now I'm getting ads for her toothpaste brand, the brand I've been putting in my mouth for a week. We never talked about this brand or googled it or anything like that.

As a privacy tech worker, let me explain why this is happening.

First of all, your social media apps are not listening to you. This is a conspiracy theory. It's been debunked over and over again.

But frankly they don't need to because everything else you give them unthinkingly is way cheaper and way more powerful.

Your apps collect a ton of data from your phone. Your unique device ID. Your location. Your demographics.

Data aggregators pay to pull in data from EVERYWHERE. When I use my discount card at the grocery store? Every purchase? That's a dataset for sale.

They can match my Harris Teeter purchases to my Twitter account because I gave both those companies my email address and phone number and I agreed to all that data-sharing when I accepted those terms of service and the privacy policy.

Here's where it gets truly nuts, though.

If my phone is regularly in the same GPS location as another phone, they take note of that. They start reconstructing the web of people I'm in regular contact with.

The advertisers can cross-reference my interests and browsing history and purchase history to those around me. It starts showing ME different ads based on the people AROUND me.

Family. Friends. Coworkers.

It will serve me ads for things I DON'T WANT, but it knows someone I'm in regular contact with might want.

So. They know my mom's toothpaste. They know I was at my mom's. They know my Twitter. Now I get Twitter ads for mom's toothpaste.

Your data isn't just about you. It's about how it can be used against every person you know, and people you don't. To shape behavior unconsciously.

To subliminally get me to start a conversation about, I don't know, [bleep] toothpaste.

It never needed to listen to me for this. It's just comparing aggregated metadata.

The other thing is, this is just out there in the open. Tons of people report on this. It's just, nobody cares. We have decided our privacy just isn't worth it. It's a losing battle. We've already given away too much of ourselves.

Apple's latest updates let you block apps' tracking and Facebook is MAD. They're BEGGING you to just press accept and go back to business as usual.

Block the [bleep] out of every app's ads. It's not just about you: your data reshapes the internet.

Also an interesting read on tracking you on your cell phone

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html

What is this cell phone you speak of? Never ever fill out the address, etc. for discount cards. Leave it blank or if they insist & you want the discount make up an address etc.

you're ahead of the game, but you're also posting on an internet site with a dedicated regional IP address associated with you - unless you're really paranoid and have a VPN.

My phone thinks I perpetually live on top of our microwave and never go anywhere.

good advice. when asked for a fone number, 308-243-3006, or a variant of that.

Who doesn't run a VPN these days?

I only use a VPN when I'm watching PPV events

Its too much of a pain and a performance hit

Holy Toothpaste!
SHEESH

Look on the bright side. You could find a sale on mom’s toothpaste for her!

I don't have an Iphone. I have an 11 year old flip phone. Do they track you on a flip phone?

Group buy anyone ?

Sticky, Bin ?

🦫

I’m on it.

SimonKenton7 - if the phone has E911 (enhanced 911 that supports your GPS location)... Yep.
But frankly he’s talking about the Google (Android) and Apple Iphone operating systems that send that information to them vs. the wireless carrier.


Making sales, is big money - if you think they haven’t been tracking you until the Internet, smart phones, and IP came out - you are essentially an newb amateur.

In the end it’s not good to let the privacy people know everything that the guys who built the system know.

I've got waaaayyy too much sensitive info that I don't want spread around the internet.

I used Prep H once, years ago. What are they going to do with that?

There's ways to easily limit it, turn on location on your phone, for example. Go in the settings and turn off location tracking. Deny all apps access to it, especially "google"

Won't solve it, but it's a start that's easy to do.

Private VPN’s only shift part of your data elsewhere, and secure some of the “from me to you path”... but at the end of the day all the services get an Public route-able IP address from an ISP somewhere, and from there on out... it’s still open.

Nobody will likely stop all tracking, but many things can be done. Stay the ph*ck off social media, you might as well have a bullhorn yelling "I'm here". Never ever ever use anything google, that includes all those gmail accounts. Get off of anything Apple and Microsoft, that includes their search engines, email, etc. There are browsers and search engines that are a lot safer than most.

You still got teef?

Huh.
😁😁

Don’t want my avatar fugged with!

Try to sell you a copy of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire"...


ABSOLUTELY!!! Oh, you betcha..

And my cheapie 'flipper' has everything disabled except the ability to make or receiver calls; NO texting, NO 'apps', NO NOTHIN' else...