[alpha_squared]

> It's just that most companies are using crap ad tech.

Including Facebook, apparently. About 90% of Instagram ads were irrelevant to me for about two years. Then I mentioned an interest in photography in a private conversation, now 75% of ads are photography-related.

[mitchitized]

I once let my then 13yo borrow my laptop to do some research as he wanted to start experimenting with modded minecraft. I sat next to him while he researched minecraft plugins - no opportunity for him to hit some cough other websites, it was totally legit browsing session. Let's just say the advertising bubbles that Google rammed me into literally forced me to install adblockers just to make my web browsing experiences SFW again (also saw a huge spike in hostile ads with malware, and suspect it was too drastic and immediate a change to be mere coincidence).

Saying "crap ad tech" is giving way, way too much credit to ad tech. I'd argue current ad tech IS crap, because the overall methodology and approach is fundamentally crap.

[KingMachiavelli]

Might not be that strange. The Minecraft plugins community is the perfect group to trick into installing malware. There are shaders and extensions that are hosted on very shady website and people just act like it is no big deal.

[Nextgrid]

A teenager searching for video game plugins is the perfect target for all kinds of scams - it is absolutely not strange, the system is working as intended within the constraints it's given. Change the constraints by introducing regulation (such as advertising networks being liable for the ads they display) and the problem will go away.

[Nextgrid]

The methodology is not completely crap. The role of the ad network is to get paid to display an ad. They aren't incentivised to ensure the ad is actually relevant - as long as they find some sucker to pay them to display the ad, they'll happily display it. Whether the mark then "converts" is not their problem.

The problem is that the entire advertising industry is crap and has successfully contaminated and taken over the tech industry. The only way out is regulation so that 1) advertisers are liable for what they display (to discourage scam or illegal ads - and in some countries NSFW content would fall into this category as you're supposed to ask or verify the user's age) and 2) privacy regulations that make targeted advertising opt-in so that overall the cost of advertising becomes too great and starts allowing alternative monetization models (such as actually asking the user to pay for the service) to compete.

[justapassenger]

Let's apply occam's razor.

What's more likely?

1. You mentioned thousands of other things in your private conversations. They suddenly start to narrow down on one specific one. 2. You're interested in photography, and are using service made to share photos. You follow photography accounts/search on the internet for photography related content, this signal got picked up, you clicked on some ad (by mistake most likely), and signal got amplified.

[alpha_squared]

To address your breakdown:

1. I distinctly hadn't mentioned photography in private or public messages. Ever. Nor had I tagged any of my camera equipment in any of my posts. Hard to believe, I know, but I created and manage the account with explicit intent and action, preferring to move personal conversations off-platform.

2. I don't follow photographers, and prefer to only follow certain friends. While I don't go to that great an extent of concealing my browsing history, I also make some effort to segregate information flow. Plus, the low-hanging fruit of Firefox + DuckDuckGo + uBlock usually does a decent job of helping with that.

3. In the two years I've had an account, I hadn't seen a single photography-related ad prior to the conversation on photography. Ads typically revolved around random tech products (many of which were irrelevant) and ads for TikTok (zero interest in it).

4. There was a dramatic shift in the content of ads within 24 hours of the conversation on photography. It's conservative to estimate 75% of ads are photo-related. I have a hard time remembering any other ad (a sign of their irrelevancy, in my opinion).

5. Given the demographics of this site, I'd appreciate (for myself and others) if you'd give at least a little bit of benefit of doubt on technical comprehension.

[drdebug]

If you are interested, you should know that it's possible to not be seeing any ads at all on a computer (phones are a different beast). It's a bit of a chore but it takes 3 things: firefox with ublock origin + noscript + delete cookies and history on exit. I haven't seen ads in years. You can go a step further and create startup profiles. It's a bit chore because you have to selectively allow domains for content to display (reader mode can help), but that's the price to pay to minimize tracking and remove annoying ads.

[alpha_squared]

Thanks! I rarely see ads on desktop because I use Firefox + ublock + Pi Hole. I do, unfortunately, have to whitelist the occasional domain because some sites that I need to access don't play well with that setup.

[kindle-dev]

What’s more likely? A service that vacuums up every piece of data vacuuming up microphone data, or the same service intentionally excluding this one random piece of data? Every time this comes up, people jump up and say “they’re definitely not listening!” But why do people think that? Facebook gathers as much data as possible, including buying a VPN to inspect supposedly private traffic. Why wouldn’t they listen to a microphone? As an anecdote, I know someone who worked on smart TVs. Part of what they implemented was a system to turn on the tv’s microphone to get an audio fingerprint of the content being watched.

[phkahler]

Yeah, I swear they are listening. But if you think about ALL avenues including the people around you then maybe not. But yeah there are still cases where audio monitoring seems to be the only explanation.