google track everything

For those of you still wondering whether google is the good guy (hint: he's NOT!) or the bad guy, here's a thing....

Several hours ago I made a comment on an .edu website that someone else posted here today. The website was this one....

https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/a...a-experts-warn-via-news-wire/#comment-1337114
This article is about nuclear power and this is probably the first time I read an article, watch a video, or engage in a discussion on nuclear power / energy in my life. And if it's not the first time in my life then it's definitely the 1st time in a long time when I show interest in this topic, and it's only because I wanted a backlink from this website, and so I made a comment about nuclear power.

Then, some minutes later (I don't know how many, but probably around 20-30) I open up youtube and - all of a sudden - one of the 1st videos recommended to me in the first 2 rows of videos was one about nuclear power. And like I said, I have never ever EVER shown interest in this topic in my entire life, nor have I gotten a single video about nuclear power / energy recommended to me ever on youtube, so why now??? And it wasn't even a new upload by one of the channels that I'm subscribed to (I'm not even subscribed to channels that have anything to do with nuclear power, or energy in general), it was a video uploaded on October 2020 by someone who I don't even remember having watched any video from before.

So, why did that video show up in my recommended all of a sudden without me having even the slightest interest in this topic? And just minutes after I made a random comment (while logged into my google account) on an old article of an .edu website?

This is scary to be honest...

Folks, if you care about your privacy log out of google when you look sensitive info up, even moreso when you do keyword research for your websites. Google knows the fuck everything and will serve you information based on your online activity.

Did you open it in a new normal tab? Or incognito?

JinxerCraft said:

Or incognito?

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google tracks everything in both settings

We have a google home hub thing. My wife and I were talking about some product or other months ago. Minutes later my wife was looking at some site and an ad for that very product appeared. They are listening lol

GusanoDelNapo said:

google tracks everything in both settings

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I know. Asking to be sure about that. It's normal to see relevant content if he was signed in google.

Google tracks everything, that's the truth.

JinxerCraft said:

Did you open it in a new normal tab? Or incognito?

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normal tab

GusanoDelNapo said:

google tracks everything in both settings

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indeed

clock said:

We have a google home hub thing. My wife and I were talking about some product or other months ago. Minutes later my wife was looking at some site and an ad for that very product appeared. They are listening lol

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yeah

JinxerCraft said:

I know. Asking to be sure about that. It's normal to see relevant content if he was signed in google.

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no, mate, it's not normal

Maverick1111 said:

Google tracks everything, that's the truth.

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that's why I mentioned it. I want to make newbies aware of this

tazarbm said:

This is scary to be honest...

Folks, if you care about your privacy log out of google when you look sensitive info up

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I've done tons of experiments.

But you don't need to trust me. There's a few experiments out there, on youtube and shit.

IIRC a couple decided to test this. They began discussing cat food near the phone.

Cat food ads began to display all over the place.

They didn't own a cat.

And so on.... many such cases.

JinxerCraft said:

To me it’s normal. Privacy-wise, bad practice. EU is the only hope. If you’re too anxious about privacy why not move to firefox?

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I used firefox since early 2000s, but switched to Brave few months ago after previously having used DDG for an year. Trying to get as much away from google products as possible

Also, I am from Europe (albeit not the rich part of it, namely I'm from Romania), and yeah, I believe that if a change for the better has to come in this world it has to be from us, because americans, chinese and any other "superpower" that rises only craves world domination at all costs. I hope that I'm not ultra biased for EU (we are not only milk and honey as others tend to believe), but for now we seem the only ones to actively care about privacy, environment and other "crap" like that

bartosimpsonio said:

I've done tons of experiments.

But you don't need to trust me. There's a few experiments out there, on youtube and shit.

IIRC a couple decided to test this. They began discussing cat food near the phone.

Cat food ads began to display all over the place.

They didn't own a cat.

And so on.... many such cases.

Click to expand...

I believe it. I've watched a video on youtube about stuff like this few months ago. Technology controls us all. Or at least manipulates us... for now.

Once I talked to my wife about something, and when I wanted to google it, after I wrote 2 letters Google immediately offered results for it. I've never googled it before.

They also track your location, an example of that is using a certain proxy for a long period of time then them (google) sending you an email stating that they will switch you to that country google services.

StainlessTfm said:

They also track your location, an example of that is using a certain proxy for a long period of time then them (google) sending you an email stating that they will switch you to that country google services.

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yeah, I noticed this, too. Fuck this

Mind you, I farted loads today near that google hub and not one ad for gas help or air fresheners, maybe not so clever after all