An Inside Look at How Surveillance Advertising Makes Creepy Connections

Robert G. Reeve, on Twitter:

I’m back from a week at my mom’s house and now I’m getting ads for her toothpaste brand, the brand I’ve been putting in my mouth for a week. We never talked about this brand or googled it or anything like that.

As a privacy tech worker, let me explain why this is happening.

Fascinating thread. This whole industry is just sick — staffed by the marketing equivalents of peeping Toms. It’s perverted, the whole industry.

Some takeaways: Be conservative about which apps you grant location privileges. (Double-checking is easy: Settings → Privacy → Location Services. Always interesting to see which apps have actually used their location privileges recently, too.) Pay for purchases privately when you can, using Apple Pay or cash. Check your credit card accounts and opt out of everything marketing related.

★ Saturday, 29 May 2021