Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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iPhone is listening (lemmy.today)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ok I have a question. I'm kinda a noob when it comes to privacy. I'll follow the guides and do the things to try to minimize ad companies selling my data etc.

Some basic stats: I have a Samsung running stock android. My GF has an iPhone. I use brave as my standard browser (I know that's not super popular but I haven't made the move to Firefox yet.) I have DNS level ad blocking on my router cause I hate ads with a passion. She uses safari.

So here's the deal. I was browsing the web looking for gift ideas for Christmas and came across some moccasins I liked. I mentioned to her that I liked them and browsed their website for a few minutes.

About 10 minutes after that, she's checking her Instagram and sees an ad for the exact brand of moccasin I just told her about. Just for kicks, she also checks her Facebook and sees the same ad there (makes sense cause it's the same company).

My question is basically how on earth did she get an ad for something I looked up? And how can we prevent that from happening? It's very very disconcerting to have ads pop up on others' phones right after looking that thing up.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 11 months ago (8 children)

One possibility: Are you on the same network (i.e. wifi) without a vpn? If yes, then both of you have the same public IP, so it’s trivial to figure out you’re likely in the same household.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Most likely this. If not, there is a host of other possibilities they could make the connection. Sone that come to mind:

You both have instagram and have connected in a way that makes it likely you are in a close relationship (tagged in photos, DMs)
She allows Instagram to access the contacts on her phone, and OP is saved in there as her S.O.
They are connected through Whatsapp or some other Meta service.
The Company targets their ads at category which they both fall into (companies can manage which groups see their ads VERY specifically)
Coincidence

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is the only social media I have, but we are connected via Whatsapp. I'm thinking that since we were both connected to the wifi without a VPN, that's the probable source of information bleed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It can be the website you are browsing have trackers that share data with facebook, and facebook was able to infer you guys are in the same household via IP information (ISP also sales you info BTW), and push the ad to her. Or facebook might think that you guys could be the same person or have similar interest etc.

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