Got this notification when I opened Chrome when coming back to my desk after lunch.

“We changed our privacy settings to allow us to snoop on what you’re looking at and shove you ads accordingly. Feel free to opt out, but we’ll probably opt you back in when you aren’t paying attention.”

  • Shush
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    4711 months ago

    I’ve never, not once in my life, saw an ad which managed to make me buy something.

    It doesn’t matter what it’s selling. The fact that it’s disrupting whatever I’m doing or making my experience worst makes me refuse to buy whatever it’s selling, and it doesn’t matter how personalized it’ll get. I will never be influenced to buy something just because I saw it on an ad.

    This feature will literally do nothing for me. I’ll still block ads, or if they are unblockable for any reason, I’ll just ignore them until they’re done.

    • darcy
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      3611 months ago

      true, but remember the ads are mostly subconcious. you often wont think about buying something after seeing an ad, but in the back of your mind you might have a slightly better opinion, or mental association to the brand. so next time you go to buy a product your more likely to remember that brand and buy from them. as much as i would like to believe otherwise, no-one is immune to propaganda

      • @[email protected]
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        1511 months ago

        If you’re the type of person who buys new things often then yes. But if you buy the exact same stuff that you’ve been purchasing for 30 years, ads aren’t going to impact you today.

      • @Naz
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        1011 months ago

        If only it worked the other way as well:

        Doctor: “Your blood cholesterol is abysmal. Your blood is more similar to maple syrup than blood.”

        Subliminal advertising: “Mmm, Coca-Cola means DEATH.”

    • Altima NEO
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      511 months ago

      It’s mostly unsettling and a bit creepy. Like you’ll be doing something during the day and then later you’ll see it on Google. Like someone’s watching you.

      • Shush
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        211 months ago

        At this point I assume everything about me is known to all the corporations. When stuff like that happens, I just go “yeah that tracks”.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      I’m just like this too, but you have to remember that for every person like us, there’s a person like my wife, who’s buying garbage that she sees on instagram ads nearly every week.

      I beg her to at least search for the item and buy it directly so that the website she’s on isn’t getting revenue for ads. It’s petty but makes me feel better.