email privacy

dapmdave

Enlightened Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,612
Reaction score
24
I use yahoo for email. I've done it for many years without any significant incidents that I know of.

But, recently I've been having a lot of work done on the house. We've been in here 20 years and its
time to fix or upgrade several items. A lot of the research, purchases, and contacts has been done via my yahoo account. And now, I'm getting all sorts of unsolicited email from home repair/home warranty companies.

I'm not stupid (I don't think so, anyway :distant: ) and I'm not unaware of the fact that yahoo, google and the like are largely advertising companies. But it's just so freaking obvious that they've been scanning my messages and selling targeted contact information to any and all takers. I know that there's not some guy crouched over a computer reading my messages, but still... it's ticking me off.

I hate to change my address. That's worse than changing phone numbers. But, dammit, it would be nice to have some privacy.

Rant over. Thank you.
 

charliea

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
1,328
Reaction score
1
Location
Way South, Florida
At the top of this page, on my computer, is an ad for USAA car rentals. I just visited that site yesterday, and now they're stalking me all the way to LTG!
 

mbuc

Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2009
Messages
303
Reaction score
2
Location
Berlin, Germany
After a friend broke up with his girl friend he had a few arguments with his ex by mail about the kids. Little later they both received spam for relationship counseling. Brave new world.
 

killdeer43

Reverential Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
21,848
Reaction score
111
Location
Northwest Washington on the Salish Sea
I was recently doing a search for a window regulator replacement for Cindy's Camry, and lately a window regulator ad pops up whenever I log on.
It's a bit spooky how quickly these things follow in the wake of Google searches, and it's not the only case. My mailbox is often filled with mail that ties right in with significant things that are going on in my life.
So far, no harm no foul.

But still, :unsure:
Joe
 

walrus

Reverential Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
23,957
Reaction score
8,020
Location
Massachusetts
Unfortunately, Dave, you are correct - the only way to totally get rid of spam, privacy invasion, etc. is to create a new email account. I've done it twice so far in the past 10 years - a hassle, yes, but for quite a while you remain "unknown" to the outside world, which is quite nice...

walrus
 

dapmdave

Enlightened Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,612
Reaction score
24
So far, no harm no foul.

But still, :unsure:
Joe

You are right, of course. But I can't help thinking that if this is what yahoo/google/whatever will do in full view, what are they or could they be doing behind the curtain.

Sometimes I think I'd like to pull the freakin' plugs and move to the country. Or the island...
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
24,708
Reaction score
8,836
Location
Central Virginia, USA
Guild Total
5
None of this is news, except possibly for Yahoo's involvement.

The Gmail terms of service have always said - including back in the days when you could only get a Gmail account if you were invited by someone who had one - that Google was going to scan your email for keywords and offer targeted advertising based upon what it found.

If you have a Google+ account or a YouTube account or a couple of other accounts that are owned by Google you are explicitly giving Google the ability to correlate your activities across all of those accounts. That correlated activity can be used to serve targeted advertising or may be sold to someone who will market you directly.

If you visit a site which uses Google ads to generate revenue, and LTG is one, you will see ads that are related to any cookies that are stores in your browser and allowed to be read by Google. In practice this is just about any cookie any site you visited created because "cookie privacy" is non existent. So if you visit LTG and don't see an ad based upon your recent activity that means you either hid your activity or you did something that Google doesn't have an ad buyer for.

If any of these things bother you there are numerous sites that will tell you how to protect privacy while browsing. In general, if you use a browser and visit a site that lets you log in you should uncheck the equivalent of the remember me option, minimize what you do in the browser while logged in (don't follow links for example) and log out as soon as you are done. You should manage cookies although doing so is a PITA because some cookies are useful but figuring out which ones are both useful and harmless to your privacy is difficult. In extreme cases consider disabling cookies entirely and then just not visiting sites hat need cookies.

That said, for years I have received targeted snail mail based upon magazines I subscribe to, my zip code or products I purchased and submitted the rebate paperwork for. I don't see any real loss of privacy until companies are aggregating data about me from several sources and making predictions that turn out to be correct and not obviously tied to any individual piece of data that was disclosed.

This article is interesting reading and retells the story of market analysis that (correctly) predicted a teenaged girl was pregnant before her parents found out.

To the original post, while it is quite possible that Yahoo is now doing what Google has done for at least a decade, I think it is more likely that a construction related site was visited and that site obtained what happened to be a Yahoo address and sold it to a marketing firm. I think what has been reported can be explained without Yahoo "reading" email. IMO. YMMV.
 

dapmdave

Enlightened Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,612
Reaction score
24
None of this is news, except possibly for Yahoo's involvement.

The Gmail terms of service have always said - including back in the days when you could only get a Gmail account if you were invited by someone who had one - that Google was going to scan your email for keywords and offer targeted advertising based upon what it found.

If you have a Google+ account or a YouTube account or a couple of other accounts that are owned by Google you are explicitly giving Google the ability to correlate your activities across all of those accounts. That correlated activity can be used to serve targeted advertising or may be sold to someone who will market you directly.

If you visit a site which uses Google ads to generate revenue, and LTG is one, you will see ads that are related to any cookies that are stores in your browser and allowed to be read by Google. In practice this is just about any cookie any site you visited created because "cookie privacy" is non existent. So if you visit LTG and don't see an ad based upon your recent activity that means you either hid your activity or you did something that Google doesn't have an ad buyer for.

If any of these things bother you there are numerous sites that will tell you how to protect privacy while browsing. In general, if you use a browser and visit a site that lets you log in you should uncheck the equivalent of the remember me option, minimize what you do in the browser while logged in (don't follow links for example) and log out as soon as you are done. You should manage cookies although doing so is a PITA because some cookies are useful but figuring out which ones are both useful and harmless to your privacy is difficult. In extreme cases consider disabling cookies entirely and then just not visiting sites hat need cookies.

That said, for years I have received targeted snail mail based upon magazines I subscribe to, my zip code or products I purchased and submitted the rebate paperwork for. I don't see any real loss of privacy until companies are aggregating data about me from several sources and making predictions that turn out to be correct and not obviously tied to any individual piece of data that was disclosed.

This article is interesting reading and retells the story of market analysis that (correctly) predicted a teenaged girl was pregnant before her parents found out.

To the original post, while it is quite possible that Yahoo is now doing what Google has done for at least a decade, I think it is more likely that a construction related site was visited and that site obtained what happened to be a Yahoo address and sold it to a marketing firm. I think what has been reported can be explained without Yahoo "reading" email. IMO. YMMV.

Logically, you are correct, frono. :hopelessness: But from the perspective of a cranky old fart who is sick and tired of being under constant bombardment by ads, I don't care. I still don't like it.
 

SouthernSounds

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2011
Messages
1,335
Reaction score
0
Location
El Monte, Chile
But from the perspective of a cranky old fart who is sick and tired of being under constant bombardment by ads, I don't care. I still don't like it.

Well, technically, according to my date of birth, I'm not a cranky old fart, Dave but I feel the same: I don't like this world. This line sounds quite familiar:

dapmdave said:
Sometimes I think I'd like to pull the freakin' plugs and move to the country. Or the island...

All the best,
B.

P.S. Thanks for your analysis & Happy Birthday, Frono! :congratulatory:
 
Last edited:

Bikerdoc

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Messages
2,504
Reaction score
37
Location
Wapakoneta, Ohio
When I order from Amazon or Leatherup I immediately get pop up ads when visiting other web sites; such as LTG. The best thing I can think of is to use "in private browsing" and then delete all cookies after your session, which normally means you have to sign in/login the next time you visit LTG or other sites of which you may be a member. "Login"................when did that become a word?

Peace
 

adorshki

Reverential Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
34,176
Reaction score
6,791
Location
Sillycon Valley CA
Welcome to the past - 1984...
walrus
I believe Oracle founder Larry Ellison's exact words were:
"Privacy? Get over it. You don't HAVE any privacy".
Arrogance of the technocrats or man of the people telling it like it is?
Lemme just say he routinely ignores curfew limitations intended to reduce noice pollution when operating his private jet out of San Jose International Airport.
...is interesting reading and retells the story of market analysis that (correctly) predicted a teenaged girl was pregnant before her parents found out.

Aren't teenaged girls ALWAYS pregnant before their parents find out?
 

SFIV1967

Venerated Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
18,442
Reaction score
8,956
Location
Bavaria / Germany
Guild Total
8
At least once a day I delete all my browsing history and I use little programs like "Temp File Cleaner" and "Clear Prog" to clean my computer from all those cookies and temp files and so on. (You would be surprised how many hundreds of megabyte of trash those programs delete!) But I still get spam mail. I look up stocks on Yahoo and afterwards get for days spam mail regarding stocks...And I am not even using Yahoo mail! Yes, they totally scan all your activity and use it.
So far the best e-mail is the new Outlook. It was previously called Hotmail (which does not exist anymore) and now just www.outlook.com. It's a couple of minutes to set up a new address with @outlook.com, I now use it for most of my e-mail. I also have the real Outlook 2013 on my computer and have it linked to that outlook.com. I still have other e-mail addresses, but the new outlook e-mail is pretty spam free since more than 6 month so far.
Ralf
 

walrus

Reverential Member
Gold Supporting
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
23,957
Reaction score
8,020
Location
Massachusetts
We'd have to invade your privacy to answer that question!

walrus
 

Neal

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
4,857
Reaction score
1,627
Location
Charlottesville, VA
The banner at the top of my LTG page asks for a donation to the ASPCA.

One hour ago, I was researching treatments for my dog, who has cancer.

Neal
 
Top