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the funny thing is I always get ads for things I have already bought, no thanks to Instagram. Thus, I have just been a wasted impression for those companies
And things I have decided not to buy. And things I looked up with no intention of buying. And things I mistyped. Or are homographs. (Will we all get spammed for toothpaste after this thread?)

I imagine, in the vast data they are looking at, it is still better - probably considerably better - than totally random.
 
Google is even worse in this regard, they got even more meta data out of you. But so do Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and other giants that have the best data mining scripts out there. The game went so deep that you don't even have to click on the banner add anymore, they know if you looked at it or not that's how crazy tracking has become.
Also, they can hear what you say and look at what you are doing. I can’t stop but imagine a YouTube video watching experience where YouTube app would pause ad playback if you are not actively looking at it, like a kid listening to his/her teacher in a class.
 
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My government (Austria, Europe) has access to Signal chat logs just like they have to SMS messages or our bank accounts, or most anything else. Really no point in using Signal. We are like farmed animals. In fact, economically we are their farmed animals. All we have to do is read the newspapers, buy and do what we are told in newspapers, and vote for whomever the newspapers tell us to vote for. I guess FB and Twitter both act and count as newspapers too.
 
Google is even worse in this regard, they got even more meta data out of you. But so do Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and other giants that have the best data mining scripts out there. The game went so deep that you don't even have to click on the banner add anymore, they know if you looked at it or not that's how crazy tracking has become.
Point of accuracy: Apple doesn't make money selling your personal data. I don't know about MS.
 
I'll be honest, while I do acknowledge the privacy problem, and I do find it creepy that I can shop on Amazon on my phone for something and then be flooded by FB ads for that same something, I'm a little mixed about it. If I am going to see ads anyway, I like that they tend to be more relevant to me. In the end it is up to ME to pull out my wallet, which doesn't often happen. I could count on one hand the number of times I bought something via a FB ad, and I'd still have a few fingers left. Perfect example...I am a cyclist and decided this season to buy a couple of new cycling jerseys. one Google search later, and for the next few days I see ads for all sorts of cycling jerseys from different companies. If I see something I like, I tend to NOT click on the ad but rather go directly to the website in another browser window. And three weeks later I haven't bought anything.

I'm not searching online for anything nefarious, not planning to blow up the government, not searching for pictures of underage kids....I'm boring. If Facebook wants to know more about me, fine then. It's a tradeoff for being able to keep in touch with friends and family and to spew sarcastic commentary on my friends' pages, all for free.
 
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My government (Austria, Europe) has access to Signal chat logs just like they have to SMS messages or our bank accounts, or most anything else. Really no point in using Signal. We are like farmed animals. In fact, economically we are their farmed animals. All we have to do is read the newspapers, buy and do what we are told in newspapers, and vote for whomever the newspapers tell us to vote for. I guess FB and Twitter both act and count as newspapers too.
how exactly they have access to those?
 
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So, you were talking to a friend about a beer company. That friend obviously searched for it to send you a picture. Hence the ad. Nothing to do with your microphone at all, or Signal.
Why would Forti be seeing an ad for something their friend searched for and sent them an image of? That would only explain why Forti’s friend sees an ad, but not why Forti sees an ad.
 
Facebook got where it is today because of people. People using it. It will only go away because of people. When they stop using it. It really is that simple.

People gotta change. But first people need to realise that things will only be different when they act. No point in waiting for something… some event that precipitates change. Just do it. Make the change. Stop using Facebook. Stop using as many other things as you can that eat away at privacy.

I’m aware of the irony. This site is tracking me.
 
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I'll be honest, while I do acknowledge the privacy problem, and I do find it creepy that I can shop on Amazon on my phone for something and then be flooded by FB ads for that same something, I'm a little mixed about it. If I am going to see ads anyway, I like that they tend to be more relevant to me. In the end it is up to ME to pull out my wallet, which doesn't often happen. I could count on one hand the number of times I bought something via a FB ad, and I'd still have a few fingers left. Perfect example...I am a cyclist and decided this season to buy a couple of new cycling jerseys. one Google search later, and for the next few days I see ads for all sorts of cycling jerseys from different companies. If I see something I like, I tend to NOT click on the ad but rather go directly to the website in another browser window. And three weeks later I haven't bought anything.

I'm not searching online for anything nefarious, not planning to blow up the government, not searching for pictures of underage kids....I'm boring. If Facebook wants to know more about me, fine then. It's a tradeoff for being able to keep in touch with friends and family and to spew sarcastic commentary on my friends' pages, all for free.
And are you OK for the same process to happen to your kids or to older folks ? which are much easier to target and exploit ? they also use the web ....
an old person (could be young as well!! ) having back pains looking for help online in reputable places will be then targeted with all kind of bogus "Do you have backpain ? you have to try this new cure that changed the industry!!"
Now someone who ships ointments for 100$ a pop will make a sell , which otherwise , will never ever be able to target this poor guy with back pains.

Its worse with cancer treatments and mental problems , once they know you or anyone close to you is having any issues you are a sitting duck for exploits , and unfortunately ppl in desperate needs are always easier to trick and buying fake promises.

Not even going into biasing a public opinion , as Facebook did with selling your data to companies that targeted users and tried to sway voting.
 
I started to use Signal for a select few people I know who for some silly reason won't get an iphone. It's okay and keeps us in contact which is what's important, but it's nowhere near as good as imessage. But the one thing that's better is how much easier it is to start a group call compared to imessage.
 
Not necessarily. You can not have FB or Instagram and still have apps that have their framework in it (there are a ridiculous amount of these), that then sends them information, which can then be used to target you. Likewise, you can have neither of them, but they can glean information from contacts, etc. to gather information on your friends as well. Likewise, giving an app that has the FB framework access to your camera roll/photos could scan your images as well—and I don't know about Signal because I don't have enough friends that use it, but some messaging apps save images you receive to your photos, like WhatsApp does.
 
And are you OK for the same process to happen to your kids or to older folks ? which are much easier to target and exploit ? they also use the web ....
an old person (could be young as well!! ) having back pains looking for help online in reputable places will be then targeted with all kind of bogus "Do you have backpain ? you have to try this new cure that changed the industry!!"
Now someone who ships ointments for 100$ a pop will make a sell , which otherwise , will never ever be able to target this poor guy with back pains.

Its worse with cancer treatments and mental problems , once they know you or anyone close to you is having any issues you are a sitting duck for exploits , and unfortunately ppl in desperate needs are always easier to trick and buying fake promises.

Not even going into biasing a public opinion , as Facebook did with selling your data to companies that targeted users and tried to sway voting.

All the old people I care about are either tech savvy enough to handle this similarly to me, or so technophobic that they don't use the Facespace or intertubes anyways. As for kids, it's all about education. I have kids that reached HS and college age using iPhones and laptops throughout, and we've never had so much as a virus in the house. But I agree it's NOT about me or my family, it's about the less savvy, more inattentive and gullible people out there, being taken advantage of. And yeah that sucks.

Frankly what bothers me more about those ads is how easy it is for some Chinese knockoff company to create an ad that looks just like the one from the original inventor of the company, and sell counterfeit versions of it.

As for the politics side of things...that's for another day and more alcohol.
 
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I was talking with friend of mine about his new job in one of the top popular beer company, and he send me a picture of 0% beer - on Signal.
Next day I saw a few ads of that beer on Facebook.

Worth to add - I haven't google or anything like this about the beer or that company.
Beer ads (especially by "top popular" brands) aren't exactly a highly targeted niche. ;)

This could plausibly be an example of the Baader-Meinhof effect. You've probably seen these ads before, but when your friend started working there or when you talked about it, they suddenly grabbed your attention.
 
Some people have Stockholm syndrome for Facebook.
“Yeah yeah, they are exploiting me, but they have a reason, they have families to raise, Mark needs to earn that billions of money to support the poor people in Africa… there are reasons….”
top of the best is still "I have nothing to hide". can't beat this...
 
Want to see what Google knows about you?

 
My government (Austria, Europe) has access to Signal chat logs just like they have to SMS messages or our bank accounts, or most anything else. Really no point in using Signal. We are like farmed animals. In fact, economically we are their farmed animals. All we have to do is read the newspapers, buy and do what we are told in newspapers, and vote for whomever the newspapers tell us to vote for. I guess FB and Twitter both act and count as newspapers too.
Depressing.

control net is trying to get around us in USA as well.... and we welcome it with open arms and cheer it on because it gets one over on the other political ideology.
 
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I'll be honest, while I do acknowledge the privacy problem, and I do find it creepy that I can shop on Amazon on my phone for something and then be flooded by FB ads for that same something, I'm a little mixed about it. If I am going to see ads anyway, I like that they tend to be more relevant to me. In the end it is up to ME to pull out my wallet, which doesn't often happen. I could count on one hand the number of times I bought something via a FB ad, and I'd still have a few fingers left. Perfect example...I am a cyclist and decided this season to buy a couple of new cycling jerseys. one Google search later, and for the next few days I see ads for all sorts of cycling jerseys from different companies. If I see something I like, I tend to NOT click on the ad but rather go directly to the website in another browser window. And three weeks later I haven't bought anything.

I'm not searching online for anything nefarious, not planning to blow up the government, not searching for pictures of underage kids....I'm boring. If Facebook wants to know more about me, fine then. It's a tradeoff for being able to keep in touch with friends and family and to spew sarcastic commentary on my friends' pages, all for free.

The really big problem it that there is no guarantee that all the info they collect about you will be used only to serve you ads for products. The Cambridge Analytica scandal shows what could be done with that info about you.

You might not look for nefarious things but around election time you could see an ad with one candidate pedaling with a smile on his face and one ad with his opponent running over a cyclist with his car and shoving the entire bicycle up his butt. Obviously absurd but I hope you get the picture.

All that those people need to do is to find what pushes your buttons and push them at the right time.
 
Want to see what Google knows about you?

That was fun. Without counting I would say that they got around 25% of them right. But they have some massive mistakes in there. Like that I don’t have kids. Sure. I only have two.

But then again I might have confused them deliberately. Whenever they show me an add on YouTube I click the small i, stop add and answer that it was either inappropriate or not relevant. Doesn’t matter what they show me 😂 I guess it’s a matter of months before that option is deactivated for me.

In general their tracking is useless. I will mostly see adds for stuff I have already bought. Like I was gonna buy the same table saw twice… 🤦🏼‍♂️
 
As scary as it might be, am I the only one curious as to how accurate my targeted ad would be?
No. I’ve often wondered the same. I do not have any social media accounts and I have asked the wife and kids to not tag me on theirs. And I use a few ad blockers on most every site - whitelisting a few I do support. I would be curious to see what they do have after actively trying to limit my exposure.
 
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