Brave New World

[Burkhardt]

So, a few days ago I ordered a few ER20 collets, collet nuts and collet wrenches from Precisebits.com for my spindle in the hope of reducing the runout that I find with the cheap China collets that I used so far. It was not too bad, but why not improve. I ordered from the Think and Tinker Precisebits web site and paid with credit card directly (not through PayPal).

Now today I opened www.ebay.com to shop for something totally unrelated but on the very first eBay home page I am suddenly greeted with several dozen offers for ER20 nuts, wrenches and related stuff. What a coincidence. Not that I would not find it interesting but that whole tracking business really annoys me. I don't think I am paranoid yet but it really pi**es me off.

I am only wondering who spilled the beans. The seller, the credit card company or some other intermediary.

Oh well, maybe we better get used to it.

GB

[scottp55]

Just posted a note and pics to someone in Oz and mentioned a PTSD US officer.
Got an ad on g-mail now on how to apply for my free veterans card. 20 minutes!
Scary.:(

[myxpykalix]

Hey G,

I am only wondering who spilled the beans.

You know who told them.......YOU! :eek:They get it via many means, google searches, ads you click on, emails you respond to:mad:

What is dumb is that i may buy something via amazon then i get ads and emails for the same thing i've already purchased. I wish they would figure out i've already bought it and not bother sending those ads......

I had an app running in the background (don't know where it went to) that the icon sat in the top right of the browser and depending on what webpage you were at you could see the trackers attached to that web page that collected data on your movements, purchases, searches of products, ect.

[JimmyD]

I highly recommend using a program called >Ghostery.com". It shows everyone/everything that is tracking you and lets you choose which one or all to block. It's amazing sometimes how many websites want to track you, unless you see them all you are rarely aware. This forum has zero, which is a rarity. Here is an excerpt from the ghostery home page:

The largest tracker database on the internet, constantly growing
Ghostery has the largest tracker database available on the web. We meticulously select, profile and cull over 1,900 trackers and 2,200 tracking patterns.

TRACKERS
Block how you want, when you want
With Ghostery, you get to choose whether you want to block tracker by tracker, site-by-site, or a mixture of the two. Pause blocking for those moments when you’d like to disable it altogether.

[Brady Watson]

I highly recommend using a program called >Ghostery.com".

X2 on that & get off FacePlace & LinkedIn. Unless you cater to the general public, no real money comes from either.

-B

[adrianm]

I use Ghostery too. Excellent program that stops all the various trackers dead in their tracks but lets you choose what you want to allow.

It's scary to see how many seemingly innocent looking websites have 20 plus trackers installed.

[gpinard]

I use a program called Maxa Cookie Manager. I purchased new desk computer about turn of last year and installed this program. It allows me to white list websites to allow the setting of cookies. I have white listed about 15 sites. The rest It has settings to accept everything and then purge them all every 15 minutes. Kind of nice all of the websites are fully functional but none of them remain on my computer. It has a little counter, so far 51,561 cookies or web bugs set and then purged. It is staggering what / how corporate America watches our every move, especially in the online electronic world. I will also be looking into the Ghostery program

[scottp55]

Ghostery installed. Thanks guys!:)

[ssflyer]

A good one for blocking this tracking **** while searching is disconnect.
They have an extension for Firefox and Chrome. Actually saves bandwidth and speeds up browsing. They also have a Disconnect Search, that blocks tracking when you search from Google or most popular search engines.

It can be found, HERE. (https://disconnect.me/)

Works well, and has an interesting, "Visualize" mode that graphs the tracking sites.

On thing I am hesitant about with Ghostery, is that it is owned by a company that sells data to advertising companies! If you use it, be sure to turn off the GhostRank feature...

[adrianm]

It's off by default and if it's on it's not linked to an individual user.

[myxpykalix]

It must have been Ghostery i was referring to, not sure if i turned it off or what...a big D sat up in the corner and had little dots showing all trackers attached to the website you were visiting.

[Burkhardt]

Thanks for the links. I guess I need to protect my evil ways better.

As for the specific incident, I am sure I did not google for this item and went directly to the Precisebit web site because I knew where I wanted to buy. But maybe the host of the Precisebit web shop makes some money off the tracking.

I am beginning to believe that my own tailmaker.net web site is tracking me...

[adrianm]

Thanks for the links. I guess I need to protect my evil ways better.

As for the specific incident, I am sure I did not google for this item and went directly to the Precisebit web site because I knew where I wanted to buy. But maybe the host of the Precisebit web shop makes some money off the tracking.

I am beginning to believe that my own tailmaker.net web site is tracking me...

See attachment.

[scottp55]

G. TailMaker DOES have 2:) AddThis and "ScoreCard Research Beacons"?
Can't do screenshot like Adrian did :(

[tda]

Currently looking into this. Looks like PayPal. Thanks for the heads up.

[shilala]

I just found out the other day that even if I set up my browser to send websites a "do not track" request, they have zero responsibility to heed it.
As a result, my guess is that a request would go ignored pretty much 100% of the time.

Ghosting your browser, spoofing, IP forwarding, none it really makes a difference in the long run. There is zero privacy on the internet. It's the cost of having all that info at our fingertips.
The only reason I even mentioned this stuff is so that you guys won't ever think that your browsing is anonymous. It's not. At some level, it's all recorded. Many times it's redundant to about the Nth power. :)

I used to worry about the internet privacy thing, now I just use it to my advantage. I let trackers track and I use a predictive service to guess what I'm looking for as I type stuff into my search bar.
What's truly amazing is that by tracking everything I do, that service throws up "guesses" as I type what I'm going to search.
The other day I typed the word "How" into my browser. I wanted to know what the distance from the earth to the moon was. (239,000 miles. I got a new telescope.)
The very first guess, after ONE WORD, was "How many miles is it from the earth to the moon?"
That one is fresh in my mind, but it happens all the time. How it reads my mind is beyond me. I read a website called io9.com a lot and I loosely watch all the Hubble and NASA stuff that's going on, but it still amazes me how they can figure this stuff out.

I use it to my advantage. It takes no time at all for me to research anything on the internet or to find products because of tracking and predictive services. Plus the ads and links I get are very often something I truly want to read about.
I think it's pretty cool.

Ya know what wasn't cool? Party Lines. Remember those?
And the early cordless phones. We used to get to listen to all the drug dealing neighbor kid's conversations back in the early 80's.

Now, if you really want to sweat privacy, here's a neat fact...
There are 17 cellular towers in the US that are part of no telephone service whatsoever. All capable of intercepting any phone calls within their range, and capable of accessing all routed calls.
A couple sit right on top of government building, but the rest are just scattered about.
Big Brother watches hard.
know he's not watching me very hard, cause if he was, he'd have died of boredom long, long ago. :D

[Sameer Patel]

I totally understand now days it has become a huge problem if you you search anything on social media you start getting annoying ads