This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected.
Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing.
I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to track my web browsing through ads. I'm not sure where they get their info.
For example, last week I bought a new kind of barbecue sauce at the grocery store and the next day Facebook was asking me to like the specific brand's page. It made me wonder. Are banks funnelling purchase information to Facebook?
I never researched this sauce online although I had looked up recipes on how to make homemade sauce through google. But facebook seemed to know the specific brand I had bought.
A similar thing happened to me when I bought replacement windshield wipers for my car a few months ago. I don't know, maybe facebook was just following the weather and knowing that there had been a lot of wiper destroying freezing rain at the time, was suggesting liking major wiper sellers to everybody around here but I still found it suspicious. I had not looked up any wipers online or mentioned that I needed some anywhere and the ad showed up just after my purchase. I know this is all very unscientific. Anybody else have similar experiences?
I don't know whether or not facebook is doing this, but it is worth knowing that supermarket purchase data is often merged with online profiles. For example, my ISP (Verizon FIOS) buys this data, merges it with subscription information and household data and then "shares" it with their internet advertising service bureau, who happens to be google. They don't need 3rd party cookies in these scenarios because they can match ip to subscriber name & address.
I don't believe there are feeds that are real time enough to support next day purchase correlation, but there certainly will be in the future.
Note that even if you've given them bad or no data when you obtained the affinity card they still match you with your credit cards that you've used at the grocery.
I think switching where you shop is probably the most practical - it's rare for independent groceries to have such a program, and the smaller the chain the less likely they are to be selling shopping data on. Under a certain volume it's apparently not appealing to bother doing the deals to buy it.
> last week I bought a new kind of barbecue sauce at the grocery store and the next day Facebook was asking me to like the specific brand's page
Facebook has teamed up with datalogix to track users' offline purchases, but as far as I know this is just for a/b testing and not for targeting/ad serving.
It's also quite possible it's just a coincidence; that specific brand happens to be running a campaign on facebook, and facebook either got lucky or predicted you would like their sauce (i.e. did their job well).
>and facebook either got lucky or predicted you would like their sauce (i.e. did their job well).
Or he saw the sauce on Facebook BEFORE he bought it, bought it unconsciously because of having seen it, and then only really consciously noticed the ad after he had already bought the sauce.
Blocking third-party cookies does practically nothing to prevent such tracking. Web-bugs and supercookies, just for starters, are immune to that.
Install Ghostery to get all the low-hanging fruit - you'll probably want to tweak-up the settings from the default. There are still sophisticated trackers out there beyond what Ghostery can stop. For firefox the Request Policy add-on will give you very good control over that stuff, but it requires a "mechanic's" level of understanding to use without pulling your hair out.
Frankly I am a bit surprised by your naivete - this sort of profiling is big business. Huge. I kind of thought that everyone on here on HN was aware of just how intrusive these tracker/stalkers were.
Online tracking I can understand, but I consider myself to be pretty on top of these types of issues and I was surprised to find out about that Facebook might be tracking offline behavior too. Even though it seems obvious in hindsight - credit card and loyalty card companies know everything you buy, and Facebook knows your personal info, so just connect the two - I don't think it's the type of thing that occurs to most people.
Or more likely to me, the barbecue sauce company recently launched a marketing campaign that influenced you to buy one (and the campaign is continuing on Facebook where you see it now).
Thank for for making me feel even better about deleting my Facebook account over 2 years ago.
Edit: also, you may want to look into using Ghostery: http://www.ghostery.com Many (most?) of these trackers are not blocked by the "third-party cookies" setting in your browser.
> Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing.
Though you say completely outside Facebook, at least it is still just taking signals from other parts of the Internet. Imagine now what Google Now or Glass will be able add!
Edit: Didn't see that you bought the BBQ sauce at the store exclusive without any online behavior. Unless you searched for it or use Mint or a similar service, I am at a loss.
Facebook has friended Datalogix which tracks grocery purchases via loyalty cards. I would not be surprised if that's how facebook found out he bought the sauce.
They have a bunch of disclaimers about how they don't share personally identifiable purchasing information but the entire industry has basically redefined what is "personally identifiable" to something much less inconvenient for them.
What do you wonder about? Facebook used advertisements that were relevant to your interests and wonderfully subliminal at that so you did not even get annoyed by them. You bought the barbecue sauce because it was perfectly advertised to you and you just couldn't resist.
This actually has happened to me before and I dismissed the same reasoning because it was not verifiable. I've convinced myself that it's just selective memory and coincidence. I am really not sure what to make of all this since I stumbled upon your post.
Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing.
I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to track my web browsing through ads. I'm not sure where they get their info.
For example, last week I bought a new kind of barbecue sauce at the grocery store and the next day Facebook was asking me to like the specific brand's page. It made me wonder. Are banks funnelling purchase information to Facebook?
I never researched this sauce online although I had looked up recipes on how to make homemade sauce through google. But facebook seemed to know the specific brand I had bought.
A similar thing happened to me when I bought replacement windshield wipers for my car a few months ago. I don't know, maybe facebook was just following the weather and knowing that there had been a lot of wiper destroying freezing rain at the time, was suggesting liking major wiper sellers to everybody around here but I still found it suspicious. I had not looked up any wipers online or mentioned that I needed some anywhere and the ad showed up just after my purchase. I know this is all very unscientific. Anybody else have similar experiences?