Anyone Outed by Google??

[Stephanie47]

Has anyone been outed by 'Google?' Or at least noticed the advertisements on gmail are based on your emails. I established an email account specifically for this site. I have other email accounts for friends and family or commercial accounts.

The advertisements have been for JC Penny (no big deal), Jezebel Lingerie, Shop Chantelle Lingerie, a company selling thigh high hosiery, and so on!

My other gmail account shows advertisement geared to the 'junk' mail it receives or news articles.

My history is cleared with Firefox and nobody knows of my gmail account. If anybody uses a 'family' account has anyone experienced a flood of female oriented clothing advertisers? And, has this been noticed by other users?

[Kaz]

Gmail, facebook, they are all working the same game... they have you by the short and curlies... focussed advertising is their business model... it will get worse! They have your browsing history and will target stuff at you... welcome to the new age of digital media!

[Marleena]

Gmail is the worst of the worst for targeted adds. Only an adware blocker and or remover will help clear those cookies.

[Miriam-J]

As Kaz said, they've got us in a bad situation. The only good news is that they don't really care about us as individuals, so we can only be 'outed' in a very general sense. Only worry would be if some 'big brother' out there decided to start using the information they have on us in more destructive ways.

Miriam

[AllieSF]

I second the targeted advertising approach. I noticed that in the last 6 months the ads on the Hotmail and Yahoo mail pages sometimes are targeted at a recent site I had visited. I even see that now on one of the dating sites I belong to. It doesn't bother me when living alone. However, I would worry if someone else shared my computer.

[Sara Jessica]

No, I'm being outed by Macy's. Every week I receive targeted makeup mailers based on my purchase history.

[Karinsamatha]

I can say someone at Yahoo, ang Gmail has been paying attention as better then 90% of the advertising I have been recieving from then has been targeted from my history. Not that I mind - turned me on to a killer pair of boots :).

[Janelle_C]

Google and yahoo both track where you go for ads. You can go into your privacy settings and opt out. Its pretty easy.
Janelle

[sandra-leigh]

I turned data collection for me off in my google account settings. I also use ad blockers (AdAware), and I use NoScript, a very useful tool to prevent sites from running code without your permission.

As a result, I don't get targeted ads when I am using Google's search engine, or on Facebook. I'm not saying the ads aren't generated, but they at least are not shown to me.

[sissystephanie]

I do get adverts on my email on this forum. But I am the only one who knows about this email, so any other family member will never see anything! Other than having to delete a lot of "junk" mail, so far it has not bothered me. And Stephanie has bought some nice clothes on some of those advert emails!!

[Talldrinkofwater]

I know for a fact that it's just not digital media that does this. It is all media. I remember in school talking with an alumni who works for a major credit reporting ageny (1 of big 3)and he told me everything you see online and junk mail in your physical mailbox at home is no accident. Just remember when you get savings (ie coupons, grocery/gas points cards) or buy anything on credit, you are being bought and sold. Kinda makes you feel a little cheap sometimes

[Kerigirl2009]

I also have a female email address and a male email and I have always kept them seperated although they are both yahoo email accounts. Well I also like to blog when I am reading stories and of course you have to be logged in as one or the other so I was logged in as Keri and just about to post a reply and OMG Here is a picture of me that I use on FACEBOOK linked somehow. I guess it is just a matter of time. Which is fine as I really think I am ready but I don't think my wife is.
I often google both of my names and not much comes up under Kevin but I see quite a bit for Keri.
Can't wait for those conversations to come up at a family get together --- Say Kevin I saw you on google and Who is Keri and where did you get that cute skirt and top. LOL

[DebbieL]

Yes, I've been outed by google. I had posted usenet news articles under a number of e-mail addresses, and Google had a large repository of these old posts. One personals ad I posted back in 1992. I had gotten divorced and my previous girlfriend had decided to take up a very lucrative offer of marriage, so I was "on the market" and was hoping to meet a woman who would like Debbie. Since I had posted as [email protected] or something like that, it showed up when someone searched it out.

At the time I was posting 3-5 articles a day in support of Linux and Open Source, and someone who was a Microsoft supporter searched these listings under my previous aliases, and then attempted to "shut me up" by posting the personal, as well as another story of an unpleasant experience with another man, and attempted to claim this discredited me. He was hoping I would deny it, so that he could prove that I was a liar. Instead, I owned up to it, admitted that I had posted both, and explained the circumstances of my life at the time of the posting.

The interesting thing is that instead of the other members of the group bashing me, they came to my defense and blasted the person who had resorted to such slimy tactics, and he paid consequences for another 2 years.

Other than a few right wing Fundamentalist Christians, who did not know me personally, I've. found that most people have been very supportive, especially in the last decade. Most of those who know me personally, realize that I'm transgendered, and realize that this has given me a unique perspective on life, as well as making it possible for me to help a lot of people who couldn't have been helped by more "traditional" people. Debbie has served as a 12 step sponsor in both AA and NA, and has helped thousands of people get clean and sober. Debbie was also asked to contribute to literature, including the Basic Text, It Works How And Why, and the 12 step guide for Narcotics Anonymous. Of course, I could never proved that, because I made my contributions anonymously.

[Vickie_CDTV]

Of course, it will not stop a family member who is determined to snoop, but you could install the AdBlock add-on for Firefox or Chrome (AdBlock is one of the most useful pieces of software one will ever use) and get the family used to browsing with it on. Once the see how much nicer the web is with it, it is unlikely they would want to turn it off and possibly see any targeted ads. It would be trivial to turn it off and see what ads come up, but they would have to want to actually do that.

[JessHaust]

The ads come from tracking cookies placed on your computer by every web site you visit. Clear the cookies and the targeted ads go away. The ads themselves will not, but they will be random instead if targeted. BTW, how do you think Google makes money? Nobody here pays them for their services. Google is in the ad business- search, email, youtube etc., are all just there to get our eyes on their ads.

[Helen Grandeis]

I use Google Chrome - Incognito which erases the history. There is a similar mode in Internet Explorer. Then periodically you can clear cookies and browsing history.
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Some of us are famous public figures who have had their names dragged through the press - those google hits won't go away.
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Some of the links connect to CD.com forum posts for those people.

[freeindress]

Not Google because I don't use them and block unwanted things with adblock+/noscript/ghostery. If I had to share a computer, eBay would be a problem with its buying history, watch list, list of recently viewed items... I'd go for a portable web browser on an USB stick or a heavier setup of a TrueCrypt container filled with a VirtualBox operating system.
Watch for Google Cars... Street View only blur faces and license plates, so they could out someone with a shot of her house while she is around in drag.

[Sophie_C]

As said above, firefox and adblock plus+! I don't see squat when it comes to adds. Give it a try. I also tend to have people use different browsers and their own computers, just to be safe.

[Foxglove]

BTW, how do you think Google makes money? Nobody here pays them for their services. Google is in the ad business- search, email, youtube etc., are all just there to get our eyes on their ads.

Jess, this is my take on this question: every business advertises and thus has an advertising budget. Whenever you buy something from them, part of the price you pay goes to cover their advertising budget. So we pay them, they pay Google. We're paying for advertising we'd prefer to do without. Ultimately, Google does get their money from us, which means that Google isn't really free.

Annabelle

[JessHaust]

Annabelle, It's nice to see someone who actually see's the big picture! Yes we pay for it all! Most people don't get that. It is indeed our money going to whatever business, or at least the hopes of capturing our money that pays for google services. They just get it from the business side and not the consumer side. I am an IT guy and it amazes me how many people have no clue how or why Google, Yahoo, Firefox and all the other 'Free' internet services work. Most think they are either government services, or just really kind hearted people who go to work at Google everyday for free to make our lives better!

[Lyric]

I never see Google's ads. I use Firefox with AdBlock Plus and NoScript running all the time. I also have my browser set to clear cookies and pretty much everything whenever I close the browser, which is often. This is what I'd suggest as a solution for anyone using a "family" computer.

~ Lyric ~

[Acastina]

My extremely knowledgable stepson worked for Yahoo until recently. I asked him about the browsing tracking and targeted advertising, and he explained that it's a completely automated thing done by complexes of huge computers churning billions of markers constantly. In other words, there is no employee who would see any of your history in a way that could be traced to your identity in the usual course of the process, so I don't see a big privacy issue. The various suggestions here for clearing history and purging cookies are all good, and, in my view, it's easy to explain away a potentially embarrassing ad with a darndest-things-pop-up-on-the-Internet comment.

[Kendappa]

LoL... I didn't consider this being outed, but you are being marketed as a girl. Its all in the cookies, babe! :P