Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Mountain_Skies 627 days ago
While out hiking one day, I started thinking about buying a small ladder for the kitchen. When I got home that evening, I started seeing ads for ladders even though I had not searched for ladders, spoke to anyone about ladders, or even texted anyone about them. It was just a thought I had while hiking. Was it a coincidence or something else?

Finally figured it out a day later when reviewing my hike on the Fitbit app. At the end of my hike I forgot to shutoff route tracking. On my way home, I had stopped by Walmart to grab a few things and while there, looked at their ladders. I could see on the app the path I took through the store, including when I stopped for a few minutes in front of the ladders. That was enough data to trigger ads for ladders for the next couple of days.

We leak data about ourselves constantly without realizing how much we're doing it or where it ends up going. Lots of it is also circumstantial and makes me wonder what erroneous ideas some of these databases might have accumulated over the years and who gets to see that "information". What happens if you walk through a part of town where there's an activist rally for "We Love Kitten Torture" going on? Do you forever get tagged in a bunch of databases as an animal torturer?

1 comments

We don't leak data about ourselves. Companies specifically collect data about us, and then do whatever they want with it.