Ok I have a question. I’m kinda a noob when it comes to privacy. I’ll follow the guides and do the things to try to minimize ad companies selling my data etc.
Some basic stats: I have a Samsung running stock android. My GF has an iPhone. I use brave as my standard browser (I know that’s not super popular but I haven’t made the move to Firefox yet.) I have DNS level ad blocking on my router cause I hate ads with a passion. She uses safari.
So here’s the deal. I was browsing the web looking for gift ideas for Christmas and came across some moccasins I liked. I mentioned to her that I liked them and browsed their website for a few minutes.
About 10 minutes after that, she’s checking her Instagram and sees an ad for the exact brand of moccasin I just told her about. Just for kicks, she also checks her Facebook and sees the same ad there (makes sense cause it’s the same company).
My question is basically how on earth did she get an ad for something I looked up? And how can we prevent that from happening? It’s very very disconcerting to have ads pop up on others’ phones right after looking that thing up.
Lemmy is the only social media I have, but we are connected via Whatsapp. I’m thinking that since we were both connected to the wifi without a VPN, that’s the probable source of information bleed.
It can be the website you are browsing have trackers that share data with facebook, and facebook was able to infer you guys are in the same household via IP information (ISP also sales you info BTW), and push the ad to her. Or facebook might think that you guys could be the same person or have similar interest etc.
If you’re texting each other via WhatsApp, Facebook knows. Facebook also knows which site’s you’re browsing by buying that data off of any old data broker. No need for IP-addresses here; a VPN proxy won’t help you.