Email from Camping World

[jimlj]

Is it just a coincidence that I happen to be looking on the web for the proper way to clean and maintain the roof on my TT when a couple days later I get an email with a "price drop alert", and low and behold rubber roof cleaner price had dropped? I know if you don't have your settings right, every time you look up some widget on the net you see the ad for that widget on every page you look at for months. Are they able to track you and email you ad's now?

[Community Alumni]

"I don't get emails, but I get phone calls from the IRS all the time! Seems they're always going to sue me."

You're lucky. The IRS agent with the heavy accent that calls me is always threatening to have me arrested. :B

[goducks10]

It's Google keeping and eye on you.

[falconbrother]

I work at a college. Recently we did some advertising using texting and a thing called geo-fencing. Basically that allows the advertiser to send adds to phones in very specific geographical areas. When someone clicks on the add it gives you all kinds of details about that click including what happened after that if they applied for college. I wasn't involved in it but, I heard about the results. Just amazing technology.

I also had a friend who refused to get a facebook page because he said he wanted his anonymity. So, over time he ended up in photos anyway through things people posted. If you went to tag photos and hovered over his it would suggest his name even though he never had an account. Facial recognition even for people who didn't have accounts.

Then there were the folks who have the various devices like the Amazon Echo that listen to you all the time. You talk about cats you get adds for cat food.

All of these things are linked together and have been for years. Then throw in your credit card activity, medical records, banking, grocery habits, travel destinations by purchases and phone pings, etc..

Mostly no one other than advertisers is looking and connecting the dots...mostly..

[kerrlakeRoo]

Ads for everything you have looked at, surveys for anything you bought, new friend suggestions, and Facebook and Google claim they dont sell your data or snoop on you.

Turn off the GPS on your phone or tablet fro a day, and see how many times you are asked to turn it on for different websites, and ask yourself "Why do they need to know where I am?"
Laughable aint it.

[jfkmk]

DutchmenSport wrote:
Think of it this way, it could be a lot worse. Just suppose the IRS was sending you emails. Every time you drop a quarter into a gumball machine you get an email from the IRS! imagine that.

I don't get emails, but I get phone calls from the IRS all the time! Seems they're always going to sue me.

[DutchmenSport]

Think of it this way, it could be a lot worse. Just suppose the IRS was sending you emails. Every time you drop a quarter into a gumball machine you get an email from the IRS! imagine that.

[Jim]

This all comes from the fact that traditional advertising no longer works. Most of us could care less about what advertisers are trying to sell until we actually need something.

[afidel]

ScottG wrote:
Nope, that's the way the interweb works.
Now you wan't to experience something really spooky? Go to Home Depot and stop at the home accessibility showers - like they advertise on TV. Within 3 days your email will be bombarded by add's for them and it wil go on for several weeks.
The chip in your card set's it off.

The most creepy to me is when I went to a potential vendors website and 30 seconds later my phone at work was ringing. No prior relationship with this vendor. I didn't click on an email link that was targeted to me. No, they knew from my company's IP address that it was from my company and that I was likely the one browsing their site, super creepy.

[Lwiddis]

Now? For years and years.

[ScottG]

Nope, that's the way the interweb works.
Now you wan't to experience something really spooky? Go to Home Depot and stop at the home accessibility showers - like they advertise on TV. Within 3 days your email will be bombarded by add's for them and it wil go on for several weeks.
The chip in your card set's it off.