Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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iPhone is listening (lemmy.today)

submitted 11 months ago by Telcontar@lemmy.today to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Ok I have a question. I'm kinda a noob when it comes to privacy. I'll follow the guides and do the things to try to minimize ad companies selling my data etc.

Some basic stats: I have a Samsung running stock android. My GF has an iPhone. I use brave as my standard browser (I know that's not super popular but I haven't made the move to Firefox yet.) I have DNS level ad blocking on my router cause I hate ads with a passion. She uses safari.

So here's the deal. I was browsing the web looking for gift ideas for Christmas and came across some moccasins I liked. I mentioned to her that I liked them and browsed their website for a few minutes.

About 10 minutes after that, she's checking her Instagram and sees an ad for the exact brand of moccasin I just told her about. Just for kicks, she also checks her Facebook and sees the same ad there (makes sense cause it's the same company).

My question is basically how on earth did she get an ad for something I looked up? And how can we prevent that from happening? It's very very disconcerting to have ads pop up on others' phones right after looking that thing up.

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[–] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Welcome to advertising tricks. My SO gets my ads because I block them too. "Blocks ads" is a data point that is tracking you around the web. They simply redirect your content to the next closest impressionable consumer. If they can't reach you, they'll market everywhere around you.

But this takes off doubly so this time of year. This trick really ramps up around gift giving events like The holidays, v-day, birthdays, or other life events.

[–] Telcontar@lemmy.today 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there any way to prevent search information from being linked to me? Like some way so ad companies can't even gather than information That would be great

[–] RmDebArc_5@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

-Privacy friendly sites (no google, ddg/searxng and stuff) -VPN (Proton is private with a free tier, Mullvad for maximum privacy) -Fingerprint blocking in browser (Brave has it too standard, put it on aggressive)