Strange Targeted Advertisements, Very Strange

Note: This will mark the first post or mention I make of the "Trump Hotel" or even "Las Vegas" on the internet.

A few weeks ago a friend and I spontaneously decided to go to Las Vegas.

We get on the road, and realize, hey this friend of our's Billy, has a dad who can hook up rooms in the Trump in Las Vegas.

So we give him a call, he says he'll have a suite for us in our name, no expenses for the room, everything's good.

We get to the Trump, and check in under my name, with my credit card.

We have a good weekend. We return home.

A week later, I finally log into Facebook, check my g-mail after an almost 2-week long hiatus from internet on both my laptop and my cellphone.

I find that I am being targeted on Facebook for Las Vegas things, and on G-Mail they have been so bold as to have a "TRUMP HOTEL, LV" advertisement...

I was using a Bank of America, Visa credit card. I have come to the conclusion that what we do and buy is no longer private at all. This information is being sold openly at the moment. Who knows where they will take this next.

reply to post by wildshoetwt


Your personal information being farmed and sold to the highest bidder. Why do you think identity fraud is the new hot crime?

you see this all the time, ive used my credit card in alot of places and i end up getting emails from those company's and there sister company's as well. everything you do know is logged in a super computer somewhere. not that it isnt annoying i agree, but its been going on now for awhile..

The corporations have openly admitted to striving to attempt to better target it's advertisements.

Information from everywhere is used to try to classify which ads are most relevant to you.

If you do not want your credit card information to be shared with 3rd party affiliations such as advertisers, you need to contact your credit card company and ask them to remove you from the lists. (Do this!)

Also, keep in mind that is not the only place they are watching your activity.

Even simple things like search engine queries will also often times be bundled into these algorithms in order to better target you with advertisements that you may be interested in or have use for.

We haven't seen nothin' yet ! Within 10 years the technology will be so advanced compared to today and so efficient that silly things like your obvious mistake with the LV stuff will become a thing of the past. The Las Vegas ads were clearly a mistake because you didn't plan to return there obviously.

When we gain improvements in heuristic programming and merge it with our algorithms, than perhaps we will have more common sense and accurate advertisements surrounding us.

Until then, it will be silly how wrong they get it.

Great example of Ad technology messing up:

I click on an ATS thread called "Police Brutality on camera again!" and there are ads on the side for going to school to become a cop. It's targeting anything with the words "police" in it, obviously. Eventually the programming will be able to determine further specifics, like "do these people want to become a cop or just sit here all night and gripe about them?"

Your lucky in privacy i live in uk, and have absolutely no privacy at all for last 19 years.

They have been farming the population for along time. At least your awakened now, be careful telling others though.

Originally posted by CitizenAlpha
you see this all the time, ive used my credit card in alot of places and i end up getting emails from those company's and there sister company's as well. everything you do know is logged in a super computer somewhere. not that it isnt annoying i agree, but its been going on now for awhile..

Try calling your credit card company and asking them to remove you from all 3rd party advertiser's lists.

It will probably work. So give it a shot.

reply to post by wildshoetwt


While not exactly tthe same scenario as yours, i have also encountered very creepy targeted advertisements. A friend of mine sen me an email (i can't recall if it was via regular e(g)mail or through FB, searching now) about this extremely gorgeous french reporter, who he named. I searched google for her and checked out a couple of her pics. Some time later (days? can't recall), i started getting targeted advertisements on different websites that had NOTHING to do with her or anything else, just trying to sell me some useless crap. One of those sites: ATS. Yes, her image--the one i viewed--showed up on an ad on ATS, which had NEVER happened before. The same thing happened on various other sites, whether they be news sites or whatever else. I'm thinking it's google that behind it, but still...

That disturbs me to no end, even though this has been a year ago or so and i have not seen any ads in along time (possibly because of the adblock plugin).

Creepy, nonetheless, but certainly not surprising.

Trump has your name, so they can target you on facebook. They didnt have to buy the information from anyone Im guessing, they probably got it all from you at the hotel. Good advertising I say (I work in online marketing).

reply to post by Liquesence


Do you mean Melissa Theuraiu? I'm pretty sure loads of these freaky advertising companies use her picture, regardless of whether you've searched for her or not

But, I agree, the adverts are pretty scarily specific now. I play a lot of random unpopular games, yet everytime I go on youtube I get bombarded by adverts for them. The other day, I searched about meditation, for the first time- after that, almost every time I've been on youtube since, I've had adverts trying to sell me meditation techniques. I hadn't ever seen an advert about meditation before, and I always look at the adverts- just out of curiosity, not because I'm interested in what they're selling. The same used to happen on facebook, but I stopped going there. Privacy is an illusion!

Originally posted by Liquesence
reply to post by wildshoetwt

 

While not exactly tthe same scenario as yours, i have also encountered very creepy targeted advertisements. A friend of mine sen me an email (i can't recall if it was via regular e(g)mail or through FB, searching now) about this extremely gorgeous french reporter, who he named. I searched google for her and checked out a couple of her pics. Some time later (days? can't recall), i started getting targeted advertisements on different websites that had NOTHING to do with her or anything else, just trying to sell me some useless crap. One of those sites: ATS. Yes, her image--the one i viewed--showed up on an ad on ATS, which had NEVER happened before. The same thing happened on various other sites, whether they be news sites or whatever else. I'm thinking it's google that behind it, but still...

That disturbs me to no end, even though this has been a year ago or so and i have not seen any ads in along time (possibly because of the adblock plugin).

Creepy, nonetheless, but certainly not surprising.

"I searched google for her and checked out a couple of her pics."

Yup, thats how they target you, you did a google search and most banner and text ads are delevired via google ads.

Good stuff I say. Ad clicks are the reason you get ATS, facebook, email, etc, all for free. Thats why (as an online marketer) I see adblock as stealing banwidth so I dont use it. If everybody used it, you would have to pay for websites you use for free or they simply would be shut down.

Been getting very specific advertisements on FB myself lately. Filled in one on-line form for a small loan and have been getting them ever since, sometimes the same ads pop up on here from time to time.

Originally posted by StarTraveller
Been getting very specific advertisements on FB myself lately. Filled in one on-line form for a small loan and have been getting them ever since, sometimes the same ads pop up on here from time to time.

Are these loan ads any more annoying than the other things advertised online? They are just targeting you because you are more likely than others to fill out one of these ads, advertisers dont want to waste their money advertising loans to a preteen girl for example, targeting is what makes online advertising work.

Originally posted by CREAM

Originally posted by StarTraveller
Been getting very specific advertisements on FB myself lately. Filled in one on-line form for a small loan and have been getting them ever since, sometimes the same ads pop up on here from time to time.

Are these loan ads any more annoying than the other things advertised online? They are just targeting you because you are more likely than others to fill out one of these ads, advertisers dont want to waste their money advertising loans to a preteen girl for example, targeting is what makes online advertising work.

edit on 12-1-2011 by CREAM because: (no reason given)

edit on 12-1-2011 by CREAM because: (no reason given)

I guess the problem is just that it completely warps privacy incentives, and at least on the Internet, that is not good. If I walk into a bank and take out a loan, okay. But just a search for "loans" on Google should not open me up to advertising, not because that is unethical, that is fine, it is just the potential for where that can go...

reply to post by CREAM


No More no less to be honest buddy, just strikes me as a little odd when I didn't even search for the one I filled out. I knew where I wanted to go and opened the web page up directly. No search engine was used, I knew where I wanted to apply for the loan.

reply to post by wildshoetwt


I'm sorry but there's nothing strange about this. Unless you are actively taking steps to protect your privacy online, you can bet this information will be bought and sold the instant you make use of it.

Mistake #1 - Using gmail. Gmail was designed to setup google to allow them to use google analytics to probe your email and deliver targeted ads EVERYWHERE YOU GO

Mistake #2 - Cookies/cache

Mistake #3 - Lack of proxied browsing

Your issue was frankly quite predictable and moreover expected.

I haven't experienced the credit card tie-in, but happens on teh net all the time. I notice, for example, that i get ads targeted to the zipcode of where my ISP runs out of, which is nowhere near where i live.

You might want to look at pipl.com type in your name and work on reducing your internet imprint. You can't get it all, but you can at least try.

I used to work for one of the top web analytics firms in the US, and I can confirm for you that yes this is happening. There were several offline sources available from which to pull this type of information and incorporate into targeted ad campaigns that are served up through ad syndication networks.

I had the same thing happen.. I did a search for Short Wave radios and the next thing I know everywhere I go there's Short Wave radio ads.

reply to post by ScepticalBeliever


Yes, Melissa Theuraiu is certainly the one. Of course, i had never seen any advertisements using her before i had searched and clicked; and, out of the myriad of pictures of her, it as only the picture i clicked on that was used. I know what you mean, too, about the other target ads: google using keywords and data from within my emails to target banner ads to me within gmail itself. Me no like this type of stuff.


reply to post by CREAM


Yes, i was 99% sure it was google's tracking cookies and habits (and whoever else does it). And while i understand the reasoning behind the marketing, and respect its cleverness, i loathe it. I loathe advertisements. Online, i never click on them, and they are nothing more than an ugly, annoying distraction to me, and sometimes inappropriate, which is why i choose to block them. It's like marketing companies throwing fliers in one's face every way one turn, both online and real life. Personally, if i see a particularly annoying ad i make it a point to NOT buy/use said product or service. I do recall that after i installed adbock ATS was aware of this and *asked* me to allow an exception for the reasons you describe, which i did.

As much as i respect *certain* marketing methods, they sicken me to no end.

reply to post by wildshoetwt


Edited to add: Feel free to ignore the following post. I just reread the OP and realized that you had NOT mentioned it online in any way. Sorry for overlooking what led to the whole point of my post, lol! Rough day. Kids having a snow day. Sheesh!



Did you Google Vegas or post about going to Vegas on FB... or look for it anywhere online, in anyway?

If so, I think it's just cookies. There's an online store I order from all the time and nearly everyday, I log onto ATS to find an ad about this store that is specifically advertising the products I usually buy from there... skincare and such. I'm a girl. I don't want wrinkles.

Also, on FB, somewhere down in my past employment, I have listed that I was a flight attendant. I quit the flight attendant job a few years ago, but almost everyday on FB, I get ads for special clubs, stores, etc. for flight crew.

I agree with the poster who recommended that you call the CC company and ask to have your name removed from their list. And as for the cookies, I'm sure there's something you can do about that also, but someone a little more technically-inclined will have to explain that to you, because I'm not sure how to go about it myself.