[phn]

The issue is, even with all the browser protections, you still create an account anywhere or buy something an input your name/email address/shipping address, your "hashed data" immediately gets sent to meta/google as a conversion with "this guy bought a cat toy", and you start getting ads for cat related stuff everywhere.

They don't even need to "track" you properly for this stuff to work and it seems there's no way to escape it.

[superkuh]

I don't experience that though I have friends who use smartphones who describe it. So I think a lot of it is via javascript. I doubt every retailer, or even a significant fraction, has their backend sending that type of data to $megacorp. But maybe I'm just lucky or shop weird places or it's because I use a new email address @superkuh.com for every account sign up. Or maybe I'm just not seeing the targeted ads for my $superkuhprofile that do exist because I have almost all ads successfully blocked. Perfect is the enemy of good anyway, all mitigations help a bit. And blocking JS is a huge mitigation.

[stackskipton]

If those companies are using big SaaS companies for eCommerce and have not going "Don't Track" part of their admin panel to turn off tracking, a lot of those SaaS companies will just sell off the data.

So sure, cat toy small time retailer on Etsy won't but credit card processor or shipper might.

[phn]

I think part of the issue is that these retailers are also customers of meta/google on the side of purchasing ads, and as a merchant you're highly encouraged to send as much data on your events as you can, or your conversion tracking can be "less accurate"and your campaigns are less efficient.

So it's less about "we're sending the data to $megacorp" and more about "I want the most bang for buck on my own campaigns" when the decision is made.

Using a different email certainly helps, though!

EDIT: highly encouraged by meta et. al! Whether this is a legitimate request to improve results or pure self-interest on the part of meta I don't know!