Question Targeted Ads

[Pez]

Hi all.

I wasn't sure which of the multiple forums or sub-forums to post this in, but, thought I'd try here (Windows 10 forum).

I have Windows 10, 64-bit, Version 1903, OS Build 18362.207

I do custom desktop builds from scratch, which includes the system I am on now. And, when installing the Win 10 OS from scratch, I do not accept the "defaults"; I turn off Notification, Location, etc. I like to keep things pretty private

I noticed something recently; maybe someone can shed some light or help me with a "fix".

I mainly use a browser you may have heard of: Brave. For a search engine, Duck Duck Go. Occasionally I'll use the built-in Edge browser that comes with Windows 10 (although, after all these years, Microsoft still hasn't worked the bugs out of this browser ).

While browsing the web, at web sites my wife would not necessarily visit, I noticed some ads embedded within the sites. At first I thought they were just randomly-generated ads, but then some of them caught my eye. So, I asked my wife if she was looking up or searching for some specific sites (for one of them I gave her the exact name of a specific fashion company for women's clothes). She answered "Yes".

But here's the thing:

I'm the one who mainly uses the desktop computer; my wife uses it occasionally for work-related items where she scans documents then sends them as a .pdf e-mail attachment to a co-worker. My wife does 99% of her browsing from her cell phone.

She has an Android-based cell phone. And yes, I know, you have to have a Google account when you have these. And yes, her cell phone is connected to our wireless router's signal in our house.

But how are items that she's looking at on her cell phone ending up as embedded targeted ads on our desktop PC?

It's not like we're using the Google Chrome browser, then signing into the browser itself with my wife's Google account login credentials, in which case it's going to bring over all her favorite bookmarks, preferences, etc.

Any idea what's going on? How are ads regarding items that my wife is looking at on her cell phone ending up on our desktop PC embedded as ads within a browser, like Edge?

This doesn't happen too much with the Brave browser because it has a good built-in blocker.

To be open and give full disclosure: I mentioned the Brave browser and Edge. Also installed on my computer is Mozilla's Firefox browser, and yes, Google Chrome. There are occasions where I will launch the Chrome browser because sometimes certain web sites are more "friendly" with certain browsers.

But, no matter which browser I use, when I am done a browsing session and am about to close & exit out of the browser, I clear ALL history, cookies, cached images, auto-fill form data, etc.

With cell phones, I've heard the paranoid conspiracy theories that some apps use your cell phone's mic to "listen" to you. You might be talking out-loud about a certain something, and then next when you're on your cell phone and have launched your Facebook app.....well HEY!, there's an ad for the very thing you were talking about. (And yes, my wife does have the Facebook app on her cell phone; me? I don't have Facebook.)

We have a Roku Ultra device; do those things listen to you, too?

Anyway, any insight & help into this would surely be appreciated.

I'd hate to think it was something our ISP was doing: meaning, any device that's connected to our Wi-Fi, whatever browsing you're doing, that its history is being saved and "mined" and being given or "sold" to other companies by our ISP so they can target us with ads.

Thanks for any input;
Pez

 

[Colif]

have you looked at running Ublock Origin on your browsers? I know it works on Chrome, Edge & FF, I am not 100% sure about brave but from what I read it can use Chrome add ons anyway. I never see any ads on PC, can't say same thing on my phone though.

MIcrosoft gave up on Edge, and new version of Edge will use Chromium anyway.

paranoid or not, I have seen things said on discord and suddenly Youtube is suggesting things I hadn't searched before.

 

[Math Geek]

if she has to log into say an email site from her phone and then logs into the same sight from your pc. the company now knows the 2 devices are used by the same person. so everything it learns about her from the phone is applied to the pc. since all that data is sold and shared, every ad company now knows what to direct to the pc they think she is using.

even with trackers and such blocked, there is something called fingerprinting that can also uniquely identify you. so now the ad company knows everything about your wife through phone use, facebook etc, and knows exactly what other devices she uses through fingerprinting. you're just unlucky enough to be using the pc after she has linked it to her and her habits.

firefox blocks fingerprinting but it has to be turned on. no idea if other browser's block them, but i know chrome does not at this point. but they would still be able to link the pc to your wife through her logging into various sites and services she has used on the phone. so ip address and other info you can't hide will still link the pc to your wife's phone use.

 

[Pez]

Colif: Thanks for the Ublock Origin suggestion; I'll check it out.

And yes, I had heard that rumor myself about the Edge browser recently (it will use Chromium).

But let me check a couple of things:
- You mentioned something about "I have seen things said on discord and suddenly Youtube is suggesting things I hadn't searched before". I guess I'm not up on all things current: What is "discord"? Is it this? https://discordapp.com/ It's described as "All-in-one voice and text chat for gamers that's free, secure, and works on both your desktop and phone." "Secure"?!?!?! If you're receiving YouTube suggestions that you had never searched for before.....then do you think it's "listening" and then making these suggestions?
- When I did a search for "Ublock Origins", one of the results was this:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm Is this it? Because this site has a disclaimer of sorts that states, "IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org"."
Because another search result was this, the very thing that disclaimer says:
https://www.ublock.org/
Both of these sites seem to have something to do with an Ad-blocker program.

Math Geek: Wow; I did not know about this "fingerprinting" you mentioned. Dang, I don't like it already!

Yes, the e-mail that my wife uses for work is web-based e-mail (not, for instance, the Outlook program that comes with the Microsoft Office Suite). So when you say, "the company now knows the 2 devices are used by the same person. so everything it learns about her from the phone is applied to the pc", are you saying "the company" as in the company my wife works for? Their web-based e-mail site? That they're the ones that are responsible for the ads being targeted, either on her cell phone, or, on our PC?

And yes, I mentioned I have the Mozilla Firefox browser, and how about that: Since you mentioned "fingerprinting" and that Firefox can block it, I went and took a look in the "i" that's in the URL bar, then clicked on Content Blocking/ Custom, and lo & behold, there it was: "Fingerprinters". So I put a "check" in the box next to it to select it, so, that will be in effect whenever I use the Firefox browser!! I wish all the browsers had this!!!

And you also said, "they would still be able to link the pc to your wife through her logging into various sites and services she has used on the phone". I don't quite get that; how do "they" do that? Something regarding the IP address? Doesn't each device (phone, computer) have its own unique IP?

Let's say we have a friend over at our house, and I give this friend our Wi-Fi password so they can connect to our signal and then can browse the web on their cell phone. Will I then start getting ads on my PC because of sites they've visited on their cell phone? Or would this only happen if I also let them use my computer besides the browsing they've done on their cell phone?

Thanks for any more info; this has been quite eye-opening for me
Pez

 

[Math Geek]

"they" are the companies that serve the ads. such as google, aol, facebook and other players in that game.

pretty much every site allows google tracking/cookies/monitoring. pretty much every service out there connects to these ad networks both for sharing data and for displaying the ads the service matches to the device. mobile is very lax in how it shares data. so using the phone shares pretty much all personal data with the phone company, google, facebook, amazon and MANY others!! this is why the aps come pre-installed on most phones. in exchange for putting facebook app on the phone out of the box and sharing data with facebook, facebook will share some data as well with the phone company. so basically whatever the phone company does not collect, facebook probably does. once shared, the both sides know everything. (this also includes deals with the other companies as well)

so you may not allow certain info to be gathered by one app, but most likely if another app gathers it, then it will be shared anyway.

so now all this data is shared and attached to the user (your wife in this case, specifically by name). logging into her email likely is tracked by google as well. so now when she signs in on another pc, google , through fingerprinting, knows that this new pc is a device used by your wife, adds it to her profile and then serves the ads it has already selected for her to see based on past uses.

i keep saying google, but facebook, amazon and others also track heavily and do the same thing. so swapping devices won't really change anything since the profile follows her around to each device. all those "like/follow" buttons all over the web are mostly trackers. overtime a happy clicker becomes easy to identify on any device and just about anywhere on the web. all those sites that let you sign in with a facebook/google/ms account do it to make it easier to cross track the user. sure they get a free authentification service for their site but the net effect is deeper tracking.

scary aint it!!!