They are listening to us . Internet Ads

[J Francho]

Do you really believe that makes a difference?  Google Analytics can track how long you hover over something with your mouse pointer as you read it, as well as your mouse speed, and how fast you react to changes in the page.  You really think disabling your history is going to work? LMAO.  They don't need an excuse to chip us to control us - they don't even need it.

[MN Fisher]

31 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Google Analytics can track how long you hover over something with your mouse pointer as you read it,

I love the add-ins my browser has

[Glenn]

Like that does anything!

 

[DaubsNU1]

Story time:  14 years ago I had a sneaking suspicion the now Ex-wife was partaking in some extra-martial activities.

 

Blackberry's were the mobile phone of choice back in the day, so being the computer saavy nerd that I am, I researched and discovered some software/app that I could place on her phone, and was able to see certain things -- texts, phone numbers dialed, e-mails sent and received. This was the base level application. I received an e-mail every morning with a detailed report of all activities from that phone.

 

After watching for a few weeks, I had all the information needed to confront...and very soon after started proceedings to make her Ex-Mrs.-Daubs.

 

I used the base level application.

 

The more advanced application, when installed on a Blackberry, could to the following:

• Turn her Blackberry in to a remote listening device(!) With a few clicks on the computer, I could activate her phone, and listen-live.
• Dial me in as a 3rd party on phone conversations. With the right set up and phone number...any time she called a number, My phone would ring, and I would be connected in as a 3rd party without anyone knowing.

Remember, this was FOURTEEN years ago. I can only imagine capabilities today. 

 

[J Francho]

1 hour ago, MN Fisher said:

I love the add-ins my browser has

Hahahahahahahaha.  Please.  I'm an AWS Developer.  We know. 

[Glenn]

It's not just Google. Ever heard of Hotjar, ClickTale, and ContentSquare?  Those are the tip of the iceberg.  And Adobe Analytics makes GA look like child's play.

 

Then there are the server logfiles, which don't use anything you can "block".  It's easy to set up a daily upload of server logfiles into Big Query, and then pull that data into GA...and viola! There you are despite any sort of "blocking" you think you're doing.

 

But does that mean it's all bad?  Nope.  Not at all.

 

All the tools I mentioned above are used by site admins to help them understand what's working and what's not working for users.  These tools identify opportunities for improving the user experience.  They do that by aggregating and anonymizing the data so it can be looked at in aggregate.  Then, trends and patterns surface.  You need large volumes of visits in order for the data to be statistically relevant.

 

So if you spend 10 mins longer on a page than everyone else, nobody cares.  They're not looking at outliers.  They're not looking at what YOU did per se, but rather what the majority of visitors did.  And to do that, they must look at it from the 30,000' level.  An individual visit/session is meaningless.  

 

So nobody is watching YOU to the point you need to be concerned somebody out there is actually paying attention to you personally.  But the people who want you to download their snake oil blockers will tell you otherwise.

 

 

 

[Woody B]

For the most part I don't care who's spying on me.  When I do illegal, or immoral stuff I wear my tin foil hat to keep "them" from finding out.

[padlin]

Tonight we got on the subject of funeral arrangements, it led to my DIL wanting to leave her body to science. When she went thru med school they used cadavers for a year while studying anatomy. An hour after we left she texts us with a picture of a cadaver that just showed up in her Facebook. I don’t know if it was an ad or some such, but it’s pretty weird coincidence and made me think of this thread.