thanks, stupid Google stalking my every move

[cemeteryismyhome]

I don't know how Google does it, I suspect they have methods not known to the public. I'm usually very careful and use VPN and/or use cellular internet so that my cable internet provider can't associate my activity with my home, but last night the family YouTube app on my TV decided to start showing ads for things like 988 (suicide "help" phone number in the USA), videos on "how to get help" and crap like that. This morning my wife asked me if I was feeling ok because she thought I might be coming down with a cold or something. This might sound normal for most wives but she never, EVER gives a damn about how I feel. She gets angry with me when I really am sick because I don't do my usual constant chores around the house. She doesn't want her personal slave to go permanently out-of-service, that's all. So, dammit. I must have forgotten to turn on my VPN or something. Fortunately I have years of experience avoiding her. Just really annoying.

 

[Darkover]

Google can still track you even when using a VPN, particularly if you are logged into your Google account. While a VPN hides your IP address from the websites you visit, Google can still associate your activity with your account if you're logged in. Additionally, Google uses other methods like your device's GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular network data, even if you're using a VPN

 

[Knoc]

Google can still track you even when using a VPN, particularly if you are logged into your Google account. While a VPN hides your IP address from the websites you visit, Google can still associate your activity with your account if you're logged in. Additionally, Google uses other methods like your device's GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular network data, even if you're using a VPN

They also use your cookies and if your default browser is Google Chrome they can use that as well

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I'd simply use a different Google-Account on my laptop/mobile phone and so on. Aside form that I would also use a web browser that blocks any kinds of ads in and around videos.

Y use a "Family-Account" on the TV?

 

[JesiBel]

I also stopped using Google a long time ago because of this. It collects all your information, there's no privacy, and it censors a lot of searches.

 

[Crematoryy]

I don't know how Google does it, I suspect they have methods not known to the public. I'm usually very careful and use VPN and/or use cellular internet so that my cable internet provider can't associate my activity with my home, but last night the family YouTube app on my TV decided to start showing ads for things like 988 (suicide "help" phone number in the USA), videos on "how to get help" and crap like that. This morning my wife asked me if I was feeling ok because she thought I might be coming down with a cold or something. This might sound normal for most wives but she never, EVER gives a damn about how I feel. She gets angry with me when I really am sick because I don't do my usual constant chores around the house. She doesn't want her personal slave to go permanently out-of-service, that's all. So, dammit. I must have forgotten to turn on my VPN or something. Fortunately I have years of experience avoiding her. Just really annoying.

Google monitors you without your permission. It records the audio of your conversations and stores every word you write (in any application). I've received ads on my timeline about things I comment on privately. But don't get nervous thinking that they're spying on your every move, know that your advantage is being an irrelevant person among billions of others.

The VPN only serves to make it harder to locate your IP. The moderators of this forum have our IP to decide who stays or leaves.

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה,
There's all sorts of fucked up shit.

One thing that came to light in the past decade is that some of the voice processing stuff perhaps for OK Google, Alexa and so on uses third party software from smaller ad agencies you've probably never heard of.

Whether that makes it into privacy policies shown, well, the customers of those third party components and cloud services are a bit legally insulated, 'we had no idea what the software was doing' even as it feeds into data products they buy back or have sharing agreements about.

And that's before the question of how much of the North American "internet" had been seized for law enforcement because someone heard of weed once or did a politics and so on.

Plus all sorts of standard nerd clowning and so on.

Unless you're sitting there with an oscilloscope and checking every damn packet it's just the Internet of Shit haunted house plus the weirder stuff that might as well be hand of G-d as with how people react or ignore us.

 

[Michelstaedter]

And it was said that "1984" was just a fiction book, where in this era we are "better" and everything is perfect, we are "sick" people who want to escape this precious, valuable, and wonderful life.

P.S. At some point, it even tracks me in "incognito" through some ads, but I don't know if it's paranoia or at least what happened to you hasn't happened to me.