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.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
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iPhone is listening (lemmy.today)

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

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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] 11 points 11 months ago

Very common. Advertisers already know everyone you come in contact with, or ar least those whom you spend time with. They will use that info to push ads to the group, or to the relevant people of that group.

It's Christmas time, you browse moccasins store for 10min, obviously you're interested in them. Why wouldn't advertisers show that item to your gf? That's like the perfect ad for her.