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Thread: Cyber Tracking

  1. #1

    Default Cyber Tracking

    I was wondering how Google News knows what instruments I have looked at in the Mandolin Cafe classified section?

  2. #2
    Registered User Boge Quinn's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    They know what my wife and I discuss.

  3. #3
    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    Google and many other companies are tracking just about everything on your computer and phone now days. This is how they make a living, selling your information and browsing habits. If you like anonymity, it's best to simply stay offline.
    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


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  4. #4
    Registered User Elliot Luber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    When you look at an ad, anywhere, the page leaves a "cookie" on your browser, a short bit of code listing that you've been there. The next site "eats the cookie" by reading where you've already been and adding a new cookie. Google tracks all that to coordinate ads between the various sites your visit, so that Gibson 5FL you saw on the classifieds page may show up on your FaceBook page if someone's buying your keyword, like #mandolin and advertising on FaceBook. I use a free add blocker software uBlock and Ghostery to prevent all this on my Macbook, but sites like Reddit and FaceBook, and many media pages, seem to be starting to block videos from playing or comments from appearing, unless i disable it. You don't want to be tracked, but you also don't want traditional media to go out of business. I suspect that soon adblockers won't work. If you want to support sites like Mandolin Cafe, the best thing to do in my opinion is to register on the site instead of lurking as many people do, but Scott can speak best for the site. It is in our mutual interests that there is a market behind keywords like #mandolin and #bluegrass so that content about these subjects are curated for us by businesses interested in those markets.

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  6. #5
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    Quote Originally Posted by Santiago View Post
    I use a free add blocker software uBlock and Ghostery to prevent all this on my Macbook
    I looked up those two ad blockers and now I get ads for them everywhere I surf.
    Jim

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  8. #6
    Registered User seankeegan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    ha!

  9. #7
    Registered User bbcee's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    There are now privacy browsers that address this very thing, with the tools built right in. Three that I use are Epic, Bravery & AdBlock Plus Browser. The latter has some stability issues on iPads, but all three are good alternatives to Chrome, Firefox & IE.

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  11. #8

    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    So does google just put up ads for anything I look at? Or is someone paying for information about what I browse and also paying to put ads up about what I browse? And why would someone pay to put up an ad for a mandolin that I looked at, unless they sell mandolins?

  12. #9
    Registered User DougC's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    Firefox and other browsers have something called New Private Window and Content Blocking. There is also something called VPN or Virtural Private Network in anti-virus software that sort of gives you a channel thru the mess out there for your own privacy.

    This topic verges on politics and opinions vary. We notice this tracking issue now because the FCC chairman has changed the commercial rules about tracking people.
    Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile

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  14. #10

    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    They can also look through the camera on your laptop and know what you are wearing (or not!)..........I keep a piece of black tape over mine.

    Seems like a big tradeoff, just to enjoy looking at instruments, IMHO.

    I wonder how we got along 30 years ago without the internet. I know I practiced a lot more back then.......

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  16. #11
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: Cyber Tracking

    I use the same 2 'blockers' ( uBlock origin & Ghostery) as does Santiago,& they seem to work very well (mostly). As long as nobody's tracking my banking details,i don't mind the odd 'pop-up'. A long while back,i was amazed to find that as soon as i went onto YouTube,lo & behold !! - a host of Bluegrass vids.were waiting for me. How did that happen ? - YouTube collect data on EVERYTHING that you watch.

    Very often,i've done a search for mandolin related photos. & i've found a Google link to dozens of photos.,many of them of my own & other mandolins belonging to Cafe members. Google must be able to grab them somehow. However, if you look at a photo. & click on the 'visit' button,it'll send you straight to the Cafe thread (if it was taken from the Cafe of course) in which the photo. was posted. All the info is there along with your name & possibly your location.

    I'm sure that Scott knows about this, & i'm equally sure that there's nothing insideous about it. I consider it just another example of Google collecting 'DATA' on almost everything,
    Ivan
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