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Privacy - or lack of

Pagemakers

Pagemakers

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
2,907
1,203
Manchester UK
I absolutely hate the way some apps suddenly start displaying ads, photos etc etc of something I’ve recently been to, looked at or discussed with friends or colleagues.

For example Instagram….

I am NOT an avid poster. In fact my last instagram post was YEARS ago.

I follow NOBOBY.

All my privacy settings for the app are OFF, camera, location, microphone etc etc

Ad tracking is off. Show relevant ads off.

However, for example last night I had pizza. I was chatting to a few friends about pizza on iMessage and maybe WhatsApp. Now my instagram is full of pizza, cutting pizza, woman eating pizza etc etc.

It’s driving me crazy and I’m so close to deleting the app.

What else could be causing this intrusion?
 
As someone who has no social media accounts, you'll probably never miss Instagram if it's been that long since you've used it. I don't trust any social media app to protect my privacy.
 
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Thanks. That helps to explain it.

I would delete the app but to be fair I do spend time swiping through instagram.

I just don’t like the creepy stalking stuff.
 
Just look at the access privileges that apps like Facebook require you to accept on install. I occasionally check stuff via a secure browser on my pc, but will never install any of their apps for this very reason. Evil company.
 
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Pagemakers said:
However, for example last night I had pizza. I was chatting to a few friends about pizza on iMessage and maybe WhatsApp. Now my instagram is full of pizza, cutting pizza, woman eating pizza etc etc.
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Did you order the pizza online or call it in? If online, then that's likely where you've been tracked, not iMessage (which is end-to-end encrypted, so I believe that would be impossible) or WhatsApp (not sure about encryption there).

I admit I would be a little freaked out if people were reading my private messages to garner advertising data, but if it's just from website orders, etc. I don't care.
 
No. I just sat in a pizza restaurant and was messaging some friends about it.

However it could be anything. I could be talking about trainers and then a day or so later my feed is full of Adidas or Nike!
 
Pagemakers said:
No. I just sat in a pizza restaurant and was messaging some friends about it.

However it could be anything. I could be talking about trainers and then a day or so later my feed is full of Adidas or Nike!
Click to expand...

There is also this thing that our brain is biased to detect such things. You probably had pizza or Adidas or Nike ads before, you just didn't notice them. And then when you are focused on the subject because you talked about it, you tend to see the ads more that you would otherwise ignore. It's a psychological effect, I just forgot the name of it.
 
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Pagemakers said:
No. I just sat in a pizza restaurant and was messaging some friends about it.

However it could be anything. I could be talking about trainers and then a day or so later my feed is full of Adidas or Nike!
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WhatsApp and Instagram are both properties of Meta (Facebook). As long as you have them installed on your device(s) and are actively using them you should have little reason to be surprised by their creepy, invasive business practices.
 
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I guess going back to my original question is, how does this happen when everything on my Apple device for those applications is turned off.

I thought Apple were very high on privacy
 
ManuCH said:
There is also this thing that our brain is biased to detect such things. You probably had pizza or Adidas or Nike ads before, you just didn't notice them. And then when you are focused on the subject because you talked about it, you tend to see the ads more that you would otherwise ignore. It's a psychological effect, I just forgot the name of it.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. It's like when you learn a new word and then you start hearing it everywhere.
 
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Pagemakers said:
I thought Apple were very high on privacy
Click to expand...

If there is indeed a direct connection between these ads and your messaging, it sounds like WhatsApp is the culprit. Apple is not the developer of that app.
 
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This happens to me too. Some of it can be chalked up to Instagram knowing what I search for, or my location (even though I try to maximize privacy settings)… but recently I talked to my wife a few times about a coworker who got a divorce, and suddenly began seeing divorce-related ads in Insta. It’s creepy stuff, whatever accounts for it.
 
Pagemakers said:
However, for example last night I had pizza. I was chatting to a few friends about pizza on iMessage and maybe WhatsApp. Now my instagram is full of pizza, cutting pizza, woman eating pizza etc etc.
Click to expand...
Another possibility is that one of your friends posted a picture of the whole group eating pizza to either her Facebook or Instagram feed. Facebook knows who all these people in the picture are, where they have been, and maybe detected there is pizza in the image.
 
Have you tried the „Lockdown“ App? 3rd party apps are full of Meta „spyware“. Just look how many times Facebook tracking tried to ping in the last few minutes (I don’t have Facebook).

Ever since I have been using Lockdown in combination with location services being restricted for the Instagram app (ask next time + no specific location or whatever it is called in English) + restrict access to not allow „all photos“, their ads have been pretty bad in targeting me. I see this as a win haha right now I am getting ads for buying property in Dubai for example. Good luck with that!
 

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this isn’t just google but if you have time watch this guy

, there is no such thing as privacy when it comes to any phone, pc or device that connects online
 
WildSky said:
I don't trust any social media app to protect my privacy.
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And you shouldn’t. I only have the Twitter app on my devices because the 3rd party Twitter app I prefer to use, Tweetbot, doesn’t push notifications in a timely manner. They have explained why they can’t duplicate all of Twitter’s functions. But there are occasions, when I’m trying to contact a company‘s customer service people by Twitter, that I need to know when they’ve responded, especially if by DM. I sometimes contact Apple Support for issues and want to see their replies as soon as possible which doesn’t happen with Tweetbot. But I’ve restricted the Twitter app from as much possible tracking as possible, I’ve never set my location nor given it access to anything not absolutely necessary. If you have Facebook, Instagram or any Google related app, you are being tracked and will see ads no matter what you do. My wife runs into this all the time. She’s always asking me how did they know I was just looking at these shoes on such and such site. She has the Facebook app, I don’t and never run into this, nor any Google app.

I did create a Google account at one time because a manufacturer’s forum could only be fully used by logging in with either your Google or Facebook account. I chose the lesser of two evils. But they’ve now moved their forum to Facebook exclusively so I’m contemplating deleting that Google account and trying to wipe whatever data they have on me.
 
Want to be seriously freaked out? Speak 10 Bible verses into your phone. Watch what happens with ads.
 
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