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Amazon Snooping Your Surfing For Targeted Ads?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shoulder-surfing-retailers dept.

Jewfro_Macabbi writes, "Recently after browsing major online retailers for Bluetooth adapters, I went to Amazon.com to find front-page ads for, you guessed it, Bluetooth adapters. Disable cookies, the ads go away; re-enable cookies and the ads re-appear. The EULA is ambiguous as usual. Try it for yourself and see."

11 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. not the same experience by yagu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I too tried to shop for bluetooth devices at a major online retailer... then I went to Amazon.com. Not a single reference anywhere to any bluetooth devices. For me the experiment ends there. I had cookies turned on (always do), and was logged into both sites with an account login.

    Aren't "other" cookies supposed to be invisible to a domain application? I thought so. So, is there a possibility you are surfing at some retailer that has a partnership of some kind with amazon (many do), and hence the information is shared in a partnership, but not across the proscribed browser boundaries?

  2. How long did it take you? by BWJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How long did it take you to figure that out Jewfro_Macabbi?

    To my end user (of Amazon.com) knowledge, they have been doing this for at least a couple of years. Of course, the problem with the EULA is that the cookie is set as soon as you visit unless you explicitly disable cookies.

    Of course being anonymous is getting harder and harder these days (especially if you are surfing from a place that is having packets sniffed by someone like the NSA. (for kicks do a traceroute (*NIX and OS X, tracert on Windows) on NSA.gov from where you are and look for the AT&T hub that is splitting the traffic (The AT&T hub for my traffic is tbr1013801.dvmco.ip.att.net). I know my packets are sniffed coming from an edu domain as well.......

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    1. Re:How long did it take you? by cuban321 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah cause you know... AT&T couldn't just be their upstream provider or anything. /tinfoil

    2. Re:How long did it take you? by Afecks · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wow, you mean when I go to www.nsa.gov my packets can be sniffed by AT&T and then given to the NSA? What kind of twisted Orwellian nightmare has this world become?!

    3. Re:How long did it take you? by cuban321 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (Offtopic, but oh well I couldn't resist)

      You seem to have a lack of understanding about how the Internet works. I go through qwest to get to /.-- that doesn't mean qwest is "sniffing" my traffic. It simply means qwest is a provider who is peered with speakeasy (my ISP) and savvis (apparently Slashdots' provider).

      Do you really think the NSA wouldn't use transparent ethernet taps anyways? And do you really think the NSA would have all that traffic dumped back to "nsa.gov"?

  3. Known issue by XanC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's not claiming Amazon hacked his browser. It's been known for ages that if two sites both use the same ad company to display ads, that your activity on both sites can be linked. He's saying Amazon is using these data to target ads on their front page.

  4. A9 or Alexa Toolbar by HTMLSpinnr · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wonder if the original submitter happens to browse with the A9 or Alexa toolbars enabled? Both are subsidiaries of Amazon.com. One would need to review their EULA's though to see if said info can be used to target shopping ads from their own site.

    --
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    -bash: /usr/bin/man: Argument list too long
  5. Amazon hosting? by Rosyna · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems more like amazon is hosting these major retailer's websites. For example, if you go to target.com it says on the bottom right, "Powered by Amazon.com". Amazon has their hands in a lot of retailers pockets. Mostly because it is just easier to pay amazon to do it than it is to set it all up yourself. Especially when amazon.com is a "proven" website.

  6. Buy It On.... by DynaSoar · · Score: 4, Funny

    While searching a bit torrent site for old episodes of La Femme Nikita, I was regaled by an ad which read:
    "Can't find La Femme? Buy it on eBay!"

    Really. Just a rental as per usual, or an all out purchase?
    Can I take it for a test drive?
    The shipping would probably be horrendous. I'll bet they sell them "pick up only". Which is, after all, the usual way. So who needs eBay?

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
  7. I was looking at this the other day... by Lord+Prox · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am building a website on website traffic tips n tricks and stumbled upon this...
    Retargeting
    I am 90% sure that this is what they are doing or some variation thereof. Inexpensive service that should work well.




    Place a curse in the RIAA/MPAA.

  8. Re:my test by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 3, Informative

    I tried it again cos I like repeatability. This time I also clicked on all of the google "sponsored links." This time amazon wanted me to buy a Creative Zen, a smattering of sandals (guess it's time to clear out all those summer sandals), some Sony hifi stuff, pants and dresses, more shoes, and some more watches. Still no bluetooth stuff. However, if I click the amazon link from my bluetooth search and then open a new window and go to amazon.com via the address bar, the front page is chock full o' bluetooth adapters (with some sandals and watches at the bottom). Clearly Jewfro clicked on an amazon or target link earlier in his journeys in the tubes.

    --
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