So a bit ago I got an add for “canned rambutan”. I had looked up Rambutan a few days prior after hearing it mentioned 10 hours into the video game Baby Steps. I wasn’t using a VPN at the time and I didn’t have fingerprinting protections active but I only mentioned it to a few sources (according to my browser history) all of which generally are implied to be private.

Which of these do you think is the reason the ad networks know?

  • Wikipedia
  • Startpage Search
  • Duckduckgo Search
  • My ISP
  • Firefox
  • My Firefox Extensions
  • Kubuntu
  • CachyOS
  • The omnipotent algorithm connecting my mentions of Baby Steps with my progress through the game.
  • Does this only make sense if my browser history is incomplete?
  • Maybe I was using DNS over HTTPS via Cloudflare at the time of my search.

Any guesses as to where the weak link is?

    • Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      13 hours ago

      I would trust something like Mullvad more than ATT or Verizon to not sell my data, wouldn’t you?

      **this comment was posted like 6 tomes because all of the Lemmy instances I’ve been using have been super weird lately not letting me post comments and stuff so I kept trying and kept trying and then all of them pushed through at once.

      • tjoa@feddit.org
        11·
        16 hours ago

        You make it sound like it’s always the case but ISPs in some countries are less centralized/ not on the stock market and rather oldschool so I bet they don’t do anything with your data (yet). Think of utility companies.

        • Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works
          21·
          13 hours ago

          some countries

          Ok, but what if you live in UK or USA? You can pretty much guarantee without the shadow of a doubt that every single one available is selling your data. In fact, I think their terms even say they will do that.

          In a case like that I would 100% rather trust a paid VPN service from a country that isn’t a privacy nightmare.

          • tjoa@feddit.org
            1·
            2 hours ago

            So your answer to „you can’t generalize vpn good, isp bad because not everyone is living in the UK and US“ is „but what if everyone does?!“ ok

    • FoundFootFootage78@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      21·
      1 day ago

      And it also could not. Either way it wasn’t active at the time so it’s down to whether my ISP is selling it.