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Has Facebook Learnt To Read Minds?

These be the Devil's cookies, these fiendish web conspirators! If I'm buying revolvers and strychnine, or cream for my piles, I don't want my transactional aspirations to be transmuted across the web....

Too late.
 
I've been saying 'Google is evil!' for ages now

...well, since April 23rd, actually!

Google should assassinate me before the phrase becomes a meme. But as I don't use Google, or Facebook either, it may take them a while to track me down. Will they find me before the Grim Reaper does? ;)

If I disappear from the MB, check the FP for reports of strange deaths...
 
I've been saying 'Google is evil!' for ages now

...well, since April 23rd, actually!

Google should assassinate me before the phrase becomes a meme. But as I don't use Google, or Facebook either, it may take them a while to track me down. Will they find me before the Grim Reaper does? ;)

If I disappear from the MB, check the FP for reports of strange deaths...
I was thinking recently that we need a 'dead man's switch' feature for the FTMB.
 
What precisely were you doing online before logging back into FBook? Keyword triggering from your newsfeed?

So say you're an amateur taxidermist (random uniqueword from gattino's world). You open/read a news piece from your newsfeed about taxidermy. The FBook conversation you'd had with your friend included the word wildcard match "taxi" (how they paid too much on a night out), and, a persistent cookie just set moments ago, sourced from the newsfeed, part-matches from your private messages, and opens that applet / conversation.

Taxidermy is one of the fake interests I have in my FB profile, put there just to throw off advertisers, interesting your chose that as your random word
 
I've had the opposite experience - retailers never offer anything I want and much of the time Google doesn't turn up the search results I'm looking for. If it's there at all, it'll be down on page 125 or so. And Yahoo is ever so much worse. I take this as confirmation that I'm such a weirdo that no one even bothers to market to my type. :p

However (and more to the point), there was the well-known case of Target department stores being so accurate with statistics-based marketing, they had to pull it back a bit, as it was frightening the customers.
Excellent article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=6&_r=2&hp

More information can be gleaned from statistical analysis than many people would ever guess.
 
Ulalume said:
However (and more to the point), there was the well-known case of Target department stores being so accurate with statistics-based marketing, they had to pull it back a bit, as it was frightening the customers.
Excellent article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=6&_r=2&hp

More information can be gleaned from statistical analysis than many people would ever guess.
@Ulalume ....this linked article is nothing short of superb! It is detailed, with many fascinating perspectives. Highly-recommended, dear FTMB reader.


And wouldn't you know it.... @paranoid420

But Target sells everything from milk to stuffed animals to lawn furniture to electronics

Whilst it is we, humanity, that are the species being 'stuffed' by Consumerville, it is interesting that taxidermy (or the soft nominal equivalents thereof) appears to be a constantly-recurring reference, the outlier parenthetic of eternal inclusion for vox pop set-theory.
 
I just downloaded Adblock Plus for Chrome. No more pesky ads! :)

On the whole data-collection thing, I was at the dentist on Thursday and the receptionist handed me a Samsung tablet telling me, "You need to fill in this questionnaire."
It was general medical stuff, fair enough, in case I have a seizure in the chair or something but the last page was all this "What would you like to change about your teeth?" "Would you like a whiter smile?" All these questions clearly designed to find stuff out they could then use to bombard me with adverts for their products.
WTF is that all about? I left the whole lot blank and handed it back to her. They kept me waiting for half an hour too, in the end I got up and went home. :mad:
 
I just downloaded Adblock Plus for Chrome. No more pesky ads! :)

On the whole data-collection thing, I was at the dentist on Thursday and the receptionist handed me a Samsung tablet telling me, "You need to fill in this questionnaire."
It was general medical stuff, fair enough, in case I have a seizure in the chair or something but the last page was all this "What would you like to change about your teeth?" "Would you like a whiter smile?" All these questions clearly designed to find stuff out they could then use to bombard me with adverts for their products.
WTF is that all about? I left the whole lot blank and handed it back to her. They kept me waiting for half an hour too, in the end I got up and went home. :mad:
I had all that the last time I went to the dentist. Puzzling, really - because they already have my details.
 
I'm not on Facebook but my daughter is. The other day she said" Were you looking at ovens as it's come onto my Facebook"? I had been Googling them..
I wonder what other things I Google come up there?
 
I have Google cookies constantly blocked. You can do that with Cookie Controller addon on Firefox.
 
I'm glad this subject got brought up! I've noticed this too! Not just FB but the ad bars on normal websites, bringing up ads for stuff I've been thinking about (but not searched for).
The one that really freaked me out was last week ,I was thinking about my husband and his profession...low and behold an advert for that very organisation popped up! And it's not the regular type of ad. I've noticed it over the last few months and it's becoming more than coincidence..tin foil hat time? Just to add, not on a shared computer but my personal device..
 
Techy reckons it reads his mind. Recently he was out on a bike rode thinking about buying new special cycling-related sunglasses, not searching online for them, and when he next looked at Facebook there was an advert for them on his feed!

I reckon @OneWingedBird has this right. They're like other things he looks at, or like things other people he hobnobs with look at.
 
I just wish they'd all get together and sort themselves out!

I was looking to buy a new mattress recently. So I looked at lots of mattresses, and eventually chose and bought one.

And EVERYONE is STILL sending me 'Mattresses You may like' or emails of their 'Mattresses on Sale!'

I've got one. I don't need another one. Please, make it stop.

Although this is slightly better than Amazon, who keeps sending me adverts for my own books. You'd think they'd notice the name, wouldn't you? I'VE ALREADY READ IT, AMAZON - ABOUT TEN MILLION TIMES!
 
Techy reckons it reads his mind. Recently he was out on a bike rode thinking about buying new special cycling-related sunglasses, not searching online for them, and when he next looked at Facebook there was an advert for them on his feed!

I reckon @OneWingedBird has this right. They're like other things he looks at, or like things other people he hobnobs with look at.

What if it’s planting subliminal messaging in his feed that he’d look really cool in summer cycling with some new shades and then reinforces it later with the ads?
 
What if it’s planting subliminal messaging in his feed that he’d look really cool in summer cycling with some new shades and then reinforces it later with the ads?

Yup, he needs a tinfoil cycling helmet! :lolling:

I reckon he's subliminally caught an advert for them while 'netsurfing and it's come to mind later on his ride when he got dazzled.
 
The other day I had, for a couple of days, a mild digestion upset and recalled last time I had the symptom a couple of years ago, probiotiocs like yakult or actimel seemed to right it. I couldn't find them in the shop the first day but did the next day. I had not searched for it online, not texted anyone, nor spoken about it. At all. Yet 2 hours after I bought it Facebook started promoting a new brand of probiotic to me.

The suspicion they have access to information about what my debit card had purchased in Tesco is no doubt unfounded, but hard to resist.
 
Mentioned it before but I recently joined Facebook temporarily (under a false name) to contact someone. At the very top of the list of proposed "friends" was a good friend of mine. How is that even possible?
 
Mentioned it before but I recently joined Facebook temporarily (under a false name) to contact someone. At the very top of the list of proposed "friends" was a good friend of mine. How is that even possible?

It might have been geographical. Added to which, whatever other information you entered might also apply to them. Footy team? Make of car?
Anything at all in addition to your location might create a link.

I used to be offered people I loathed as friends. The only way to stop it was to block them, which is a bit sad for someone of my age.
 
Mentioned it before but I recently joined Facebook temporarily (under a false name) to contact someone. At the very top of the list of proposed "friends" was a good friend of mine. How is that even possible?
Obs really. Facebook is just the user friendly name for Skynet...
 
It might have been geographical. Added to which, whatever other information you entered might also apply to them. Footy team? Make of car?
Anything at all in addition to your location might create a link.

I used to be offered people I loathed as friends. The only way to stop it was to block them, which is a bit sad for someone of my age.
It might be enough to be friend of a friend of a friend(who is your friend in real life, but no on Facebook yet).
 
It might be enough to be friend of a friend of a friend(who is your friend in real life, but no on Facebook yet).

It can go badly wrong though. I am sometimes offered the pages of political groups to like, most of which I despise.

A friend whom I met on here and went on to chat to on Facebook was randomly offered an ad for 'Hot Singles' which featured a photo of Techy!

Techy and I found this hysterically funny but she was mortified. Good job we know that Facebook 'harvests' photos to sell to advertisers. It was pure luck that she copped for Techy.
 
Mentioned it before but I recently joined Facebook temporarily (under a false name) to contact someone. At the very top of the list of proposed "friends" was a good friend of mine. How is that even possible?

The answer is unfortunately likely to be a simple though no less sinister feeling one. Facebook, messenger, instagram and whatsapp are all one company. If you supplied a phone number or email address when signing up to FB it will have noted the friend was in your contacts list associated with that number or address on one of thos other apps and so suggested them to you as someone you know.
 
The answer is unfortunately likely to be a simple though no less sinister feeling one. Facebook, messenger, instagram and whatsapp are all one company. If you supplied a phone number or email address when signing up to FB it will have noted the friend was in your contacts list associated with that number or address on one of thos other apps and so suggested them to you as someone you know.
That would be an explanation, except that I have no apps whatsoever and not on any social media like Instagram etc. I supplied a phone number, but as I always do in these circumstances got the number incorrect;). I can only imagine it was geographical location and a co incidence, since with the wrong number and name could not be connected to my mate.
 
That would be an explanation, except that I have no apps whatsoever and not on any social media like Instagram etc. I supplied a phone number, but as I always do in these circumstances got the number incorrect;). I can only imagine it was geographical location and a co incidence, since with the wrong number and name could not be connected to my mate.
Aliens.
 
I still need to introduce myself on the new members thread, however I do have something to add to this thread....

I used to work as a break/lunchtime supervisor (dinner lady) in a high school.
I was talking to a couple of year 11's about when their last GCSE exam was and mentioned that my last GCSE, back in the day, was 6th June (& so got an extra long summer holiday).
I didn't have my phone with me.
On the 6th of June that year, on Facebook memories at the bottom of the list was 6th June 1991 - with no posts as no Facebook then - and it has come up every year since.
I didn't mention the conversation later so no way my phone could have heard me.
A strange coincidence.
 
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