No one enjoys being stalked. Well, at least no one I’ve spoken to. So recently, when I discovered I was being stalked online I felt…uncomfortable. Creeped out. Even freaked out.
But this kind of stalking wasn’t even as freaky as the usual kind. I’m being stalked by retailers. And so are you.
Of course I’ve known that retailers, Google, Facebook, and just about everyone tracks my every move. But what took me by surprise (which in hindsight, it shouldn’t have) was the level at which this information was following me around.
The first incident happened in Facebook, when I noticed that the ad off to the side was a camera that I had recently viewed and bookmarked at Amazon. It was like whomever was serving ads up on Facebook knew that I hadn’t bought it yet, and they were tantalizing me with the best clickbait possible — something they knew I was interested in.
The second happened only today when I went to a blog post by someone I follow and I noticed an ad for something I had added to my shopping cart at REI.com but hadn’t purchased. Again, this was a very specific item that was unlikely to appear in an ad except for the fact that I had recently viewed it.
So…yeah. I’m being followed online. You are being followed online. We all are, every single second of the day. Call me seriously creeped out.
Photo by Patrik, Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
About Roy Tennant
I clicked on a West Elm ad on my Pandora page a few weeks ago and the armoire I looked at for fifteen seconds before deciding I didn’t really like it all that much after all has been following me around the internet ever since.
Welcome to Facebook, it’s completely “free,” they won’t try to sell you anything, because you’re the one being sold.
I use Ghostery to block most instances of this
https://www.ghostery.com/en/
You’re welcome :)
You can simply empty your cache, including the browser cookies, or use ad blocking software.