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“Almost every company”
You mean like 5-10 major companies?
There are thousands of smaller companies buying ad space and access to consumer data.
And “buying data” isn’t what it sounds like for the most part. Few companies are out there buying and selling raw data tied to individuals. For the most part it is a company buying heavily targeted ads from someone like Google that has ALL of your data. They know, with surgical precision, how to target ads at you. Company B just tells Google “ we want to target a 35 year old, white, dad of three that is lacking in his masculinity and wants to feel rugged, while not making him feel emasculated”.
The you get a Dr Squatch ad.
I just like the way the soap smells
There's like 5-6 possible soap smells made for men, surely you could find similar smells elsewhere?
I'm sure I could, but going from shitty body wash to real soap made a huge difference in my skin so I've been using them since
I caved and got it because people would not shut up about it. I don’t care as long as it smells good and keeps the bugs away.
This is gonna be the death of democracy when political advertising comes into play (as it already has).
"Point this piece of fake news at uneducated 40 year old single parents in " - "point this piece of scientific news reinforcing my party's message at university students who are interested in " and on and on.
My mom gets fake news advertisements on Facebook all the time, occasionally they are political in nature. Platforms aren't doing their due diligence at all, so government must act to restrict the information that can be collected and the specificity of the targeting that may be employed.
Our economies worked in TV times, with broad-stroke advertising - why couldn't they now? We don't need this.
Now it's making targeted ads that cost less than a broadcast and has a greater conversion rate. Supermarkets and discount stores can use TV, not everyone wants a 20x night time rifle scope at 3pm on a Wednesday during the Bold and the Beautiful
Facebook was the same. A company would hand them a token for a visitor that went to their site like say Amazon. They then tell Facebook if you see that visitor token show them an ad for this vacuum cleaner. No information ever traded hands except some anonymous id and money.
But I have had places actually sell my information. Comcast Various Banks The State of California
I had a weird last name attached to Comcast never used it anywhere elae. Started getting mail from various companies for Rev WeirdLastname
I registered an LLC, all these compliance companies now send me mail. Thanks California
Tech companies not so much they just target ads and I can block those
This varies state to state, but it’s likely that your LLC registration (including its members names) is public record. In that case, the state didn’t sell your info. Anyone can view that info and use it to contact you.
This sort of thing was rather startling to me when my wife and I bought our house. Apparently property sales are all public record where we live, so we started getting mail from random insurance companies within a month after moving.
Why do I only get ads about "Heart Doctor BEGS Americans to stop doing this with their blueberries"?
Because you don't have Ublock Orgin installed.
That's answers 'why do i see ads at all' but not 'why those ads'.
Regardless, you should be blocking ads. Ublock Origin for PC, Adguard DNS + DDG app w/app tracking protection enabled for mobile. Then you never have to worry about why you get certain ads ever again, cause you simply won't see them.
I probably should. I only meant to point out that all of their elaborate spying and analysis supposedly for advertisement targeting is not very effective, in my case.
Are we not supposed to stick blueberries up our butts?