When Opting Out of Ad Tracking Doesn't Opt You Out

jfruh writes "Privacy blogger Dan Tynan couldn't help but notice the ads targeting his web browsing for a plus-sized women's clothing store, not least because he's neither a woman nor plus-sized. But trying to figure out why those ads kept popping up in his browser led to some disturbing discoveries. He had opted out of targeted Google ads, and at first glance the ads seemed to come from Google — but digging deeper, he found that Google's DoubleClick was only the intermediary, which meant his opt-out didn't apply. And his opt-outs from other ad services seemed to have vanished."

Comments

Re:opt-outs

[girlintraining]

You are overgeneralizing. Marketing emails from legitimate companies are often stopped by opting-out.

"Legitimate" companies like Google, who then sell your information to third parties? Because that's what this guy is talking about, and that's what they're doing. I don't know how much more "legitimate" of an example I can make.

The legitimate companies have more to lose by not following the rules.

Once you've opted out, they have no further reason to follow your imaginary rules. It's just data now; Data should be monetized. If you aren't interested in our products, then we will have to make money some other way... by selling your information to our competitors, maybe... hey, at least it's turning a frown upside-down, right?

The big question is still unanswered.

[steelfood]

All this, and the big question still goes unanswered: Why is he getting targetted for plus-sized women's clothing? I mean, the behaviorial information causing him to be an ideal candidate for purchasing plus-sized women's clothing is coming from somewhere, no?

Re:The big question is still unanswered.

[pspahn]

An interesting thing happened to me the other day.

I do use Facebook on occasion, generally as a way to aggregate a few of my interests into one place I can go for articles and such.

So the other day I go on and all of a sudden there are several "Suggested Posts" promoting engagement rings. Eh? Really? I have not been looking for engagement rings online or anywhere else, so I found it odd these ads (again, not just one, there were several from different jewelers) were targeting me.

I go ask my girlfriend, "hey, were you looking at engagement rings on my computer?" She had an awkward look about her and went on to say that she wasn't, *but*, she was looking at them on her computer at work.

Interesting.

We are not labeled on FB as "In a relationship", and any posts between us are usually because we were at the same housewarming party or something (along with a bunch of other people). Despite the fact that we aren't obviously in a relationship, FB still knows that I need to be seeing ads for engagement rings. While I don't intend on proposing to her anytime soon, the idea is still there, so it's not like the targeted ad was innaccurate.

Maybe this guy in TFA has a mother who is plus-sized and her birthday is in two weeks? These types of inferences are happening more and more, so don't be surprised when you see an ad for a product that you would never buy *for yourself* because maybe their goal is to get you to buy for that person close to you that they know you would want to buy something for.

Re:Ads are anti-capitalist

[vux984]

How is trying to control the information people receive about your product anything but a logical and necessary outcome of capitalism?

Capitalism relies on people trying to make the best decision for themselves they can, based on what information they have.

The validity of that hypothesis rests on several assumptions:

That people are not coerced.
That people act under rational self interest.
That the competitive market itself will facilitate consumers getting the information they need to make decisions.

Advertising has achieved a level of sophistication that this is no longer entirely true. The information available is not reliable, and I cannot make informed buying decisions.

All that's left working in the customers favor is direct word of mouth, reputation systems (wherein I might trust a particular reviewer who has steered me well in the past), and government regulation (truth in advertising, labelling laws, etc... which some beleive are anti-capitalist, and everyone knows are largely co-opted and corrupted or just outright violated by the regulated industries).

Compared what the industries are prepared to expend "controlling" information; with what I have at my disposal to research something? I am at such a substantial disadvantage that I am frequently operating against my own self interest. And I'm in the minority just being truly aware of it.

For example, if I want to buy an X and I don't know much about X, and its not something my friends or family use then I'm pretty much helpless.

Word of mouth doesn't work if I don't know people I trust with an X.
I can't rely on a reviewer of X if I don't have any experience with that reviewer (and I know that many reviewers are shills, or just plain idiots)

I can't rely on review sites and such, I know in many cases the reviews are paid, the 'likes' and 'followers' and '+1' are corrupt or paid for, and full of idiots. And in the worst cases, the entire review site is 'fake' and hosted by the vendor.

I've learned to try and filter out what i need from newegg and amazon.com and other review sites -- but its cat and mouse, and the advertisers get cleverer, and my resources to combat them are not increasing proportionally. And for some products... I don't really know where to even start, and again I like to think I'm 'above average' at this 'game'.

It's sick really.

Re:Ads are anti-capitalist

[Archangel Michael]

You mean like requiring restaurants to provide calorie and other nutritional information for their menus? And warning labels on products, warning against idiots using them in idiotic ways? And any other sort of regulation that actually doesn't do anything other than make people feel good about protecting the idiots out there that don't actually (or can't actually) read the various things that are now regulated?

We are now at a point where there are so many regulations, that many times they are contradictory or duplicated or otherwise have become meaningless noise that people filter out anyway. AND removing these over regulations is impossible, so instead of solving any problems we are just building more of them into the system.

Too many times people say "There ought to be a law" and not enough people saying "why?"