blonde poker forum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28157889

Do things like this bother you? Should we be bothered?

The more I think about social media the more I get concerned about the future. I went shopping to a garden centre last weekend and paid by credit card, 2 days later Facebook suggested the same garden centre as a friend. This garden centre is not friends with any of my friends and I'm not aware that anyone liked their fb page. Do companies such as the garden centre supply info to Fb or is it the credit card companies?

I went to a Christening on the same weekend and was introduced to someone I had never met before and had not even known of their existence, that very evening this person was suggested as a friend. I know this happened because she would have been tagged in some photos from the Christening by some of my friends.

Now, I've never been one for conspiracy theories and definitely never one who was paranoid about big brother watching us blah, blah, blah but the social media companies hold so much info on us, and after all information is king, it's starting to play on my mind and I'm actually more concerned by this than by what the government knows about us.

Yes we should be worried.

No. I do not have a Facebook account.

Yes. I do have a tinfoil hat.

It feels a bit perturbing but my imagination hasn't yet run to anything more sinister than I'm going to be served a lot of pointless ads.

Increasing pet hate is to visit somewhere like laterooms.com (always for a specific reason) and then be served their ads for days - er, I already know about you.

I still use my mums collender bit more breathable.

I'm probably just a bit ahead of you there. The adverts are annoying but it's when you couple it all together Glenn with the mind games they can and evidently do play.

Just FYI there's no link between paying by credit card somewhere and being served their ads.

There may be other reasons you've been served the ad, but v v likely this is just the availability heuristic causing you to see something that isn't there.

People have this idea that online marketing is this super secret black box affair which is super super sophisticated - think Bourne Identity and Minority Report - but the reality is a lot simpler, more like Johnny English.

Lol, like comparison. Having had a good think about it I have come to the conclusion that it's probably due to location information.

I do however think you're being a bit dismissive of the complexity of online marketing. These social media sites, search engines and such like invest millions if not billions on research and development on how they can control us all into generating income. Look how Facebook shares took a huge tumble when they were released mainly because investors were worried about how users were using mobile devices to access Facebook and the delivery of adverts was not working as good as it should have been. 12 months later mobile ads all over the place on Fb and the share price rockets.

Andrew, did you visit the garden centre's website at all, pretty or post going there?

If so, that's your answer. If you use facebook on your computer, and you stay logged in to Facebook, they effectively know every website you visit. Same goes for Google.

They don't actually know that Andrew Psaras did this and that, but they know that a particular visitor using that browser visited certain sites and then they use this information to show you ads. Some of these ads will be the actual sites you've visited and can show products you've actually looked at on the sites, other ads will be related to what you've looked at. So, for example, if you visited a football-related site (or on facebook you've mentioned football, or engaged someone posting about the World Cup, then you might see ads related to football.

This remarketing is extremely powerful for advertisers, who often use it to target people who've abandoned shopping baskets on sites, etc., and try to get you back to finish off the purchase.

Hi Kin, nope never visited the garden centre website and it's an independent one as far as I know. I get the link you're making. What do you think about the experiment Fb performed?

I think it's all fine and too many people take themselves and life too seriously.

Freedom and privacy are serious issues.

Of course they are, but if you post on social network/forums etc, then you waive your right to all that. If the spies want to know that I have had 36 nandos recently and not paid for one of them, then I really don't care.

Agree, every time I go for dinner with you I get an inviation to join Nandos privilige club and a increase on the Amex credit card limit

:)

Could also be that someone you know has been to the garden centre, and liked their page? Therefore it would come up as a suggestion for you?

Yes,  or if a friend on facebook had searched for the garden centre whilst logged into facebook.

It could also be a coincidence. The garden centre is running a remarketing campaign on facebook, and is targeting people in the local area. It might have been running the ad previously, but it didn't jump out at you. This time you noticed it because you'd just been there.

As for that emotion experiment thing, I'm not keen on facebook running something and sharing it with a third party without telling me. That appears to be a breach of their T&Cs. With Pete Wigglesworth and Dreenie posting their bad beats on a regular basis I'm surprised I don't see ads for the Samaritans all the time on facebook. That or ads for the BNP and Combat 18 after people keep posting links to Britain First.

that seriously annoys me half the time people have no idea what they are doing and more often than not story is made up or exaggerated .

i'm not 100% sure how these things work, but i occasionally have been known to use an "in private" or "incognito" setting on a browser, and still when i log into the various forums i browse, mostly poker or fishing, occasionally work stuff (ROVs), when not "hiding" my history i get a lot of banner adverts for , ahem, "older russian women" etc etc

whereas my good wife tends to have banner adverts for ebay, amazon, shoe shops etc.

so something somewhere is targeting us for our weaknesses..................

I am convinced my phone is listening to me when I'm not using it.

I had call today with someone I have never previously met. There were 3 of us on this call and I am not Facebook friends with either of them. This call was done from a landline at a customers site that I have never used before. Today I get back from work and Facebook suggested that I become friends with the 2 people. We have no friends in common, we work for different companies and browsing (stalking) through their FB pages we have no likes in common. This is not an isolated incident.

Anyone else had this happen to them?

It would seem to make more sense that they looked at your Facebook profile. It just links you from there and you get the 'people you may know' message.

But how would FB come to the conclusion that I may know them if I have had no prior contact with them?

On the wider issue, you should always logout of FB Gmail etc when you leave as it is effectively tracking you via plugins on pages.

I had a gmail "change to terms" pop-up the other day that wanted to scan my emails so that it could target adverts based on what was in my gmail account.  Obviously for that to work google has to track me on the various pages where it has its adverts (by being logged on).

Also disable third party cookies on your browser.

To bobalike - the people you met would have looked at your profile

I think that is the most logical answer and probably kills this notion although I feel it's a distinct possibility.

I have had a few friends in Australia, so have had a few posts from people in Australia replying to their racist friends who have linked to bullshit stories on, what I assume, is the Aussie equivalent of Britain First.  It is called freedom of speech productions or similar.

As I can't even reply to most of them, as I am not friends with the original poster, I was just having to suck it up on facebook.  One day I worked out that if you clicked on the freedom of speech facebook page you could block all future posts from them.  Problem solved I thought, and I am pretty sure I haven't seen any posts from them since that date,

The problem is now that the facebook "suggested site" algorithm has been put together by a complete nincompoop, and it thinks the only possible reason to visit that site must be because I like it. So now when I log in to facebook there is the wonderful freedom of speech productions frequently as facebook's first choice of suggested sites I may want to visit. 

I do think it is almost inevitable I am going to share or like it one day when scrolling down on my phone too.  From that day on, not only will half my friends think I have had a road to damascus moment, and become yet another facebook racist.  Then from then on, I am going to be faced with a whole series of far right sites the facebook algorithm thinks I must want to visit. 

Don't worry, if I am bored with visiting that page, I can always visit "girls with guns", which the nincompoop has decided must also be one of my pet interests.  The whole thing is absolutely baffling.  It is almost as if facebook is trolling me.

Try the Ghostery Chrome App if you're keen to block analytics from collecting data on your browsing habits.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdfkolichcflejclcbmpeaniij?hl=en

You see an advert for a shop you'd definitely spend money in (because you already have) and have a friend suggestion for someone you've met and have several friends in common with. Seems quite useful to me.

I don't see the negative impact on anyone's lives with this sort of thing. Your public activity shapes your online experience. Good idea. Better than getting random advert for things you have no interest in, and friend suggestions for people you have nothing in common with.