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I started going DEEP into privacy protection and ad blocking maybe 8 years ago. I noticed that despite the fact that I was completely raw dogging the internet, the ads I was seeing were hilariously not my tempo. I was getting tampon ads, grindr ads, ads in foreign languages, and luxury car ads. So for every data collecting firm connecting the dots on who I am, there seemed to be 10 more than had no idea what they were doing and just casting wide ass nets.
Yeah I agree to some extent.
There's that target / pregnancy story where basically they found that they would spook customers by revealing how much they actually knew. I don't think is an adequate explanation though.
Honestly though, even without any nefarious shady tracking techniques, someone like Amazon should be able to figure out what stuff I might want to buy with alarming accuracy just based on previous purchases. They really don't though, the best they can do is show me stuff I've already bought. Like "We see you bought a great coffee machine last month, what about this other coffee machine? Or perhaps we can tempt you with this fancy coffee machine?" I mean - show me some nice coffee mugs or something.
I always assumed that’s what the gambling and “hot women in your area want to meet you!” Ads were: least common denominators when they can’t target you well enough to place more reputable ads
It almost makes me sad that I don’t see those as much anymore. They have me pegged (and not in a fun way)