• Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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    3 months ago

    That one is super easy. Your wife is near you and possibly friends on Facebook with you. The ad system knows that and that’s why your wife sees the ad, as there is a high likelihood that you talked with her about this topic. Though the ad seems to have a shitty target audience definition, your wife should never see it if she’s not into computers herself (waste of money marketing wise).

    This is similar to a friend of yours having a new hobby, looked up a lot of stuff about it online, you hang out with them for two hours at a café and suddenly you get ads for this hobby (as it was very likely a topic in your conversation). No need to record your conversation, people are predictable.

    • ben_dover@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      sometimes it’s enough to just be connected to the same wifi hotspot for a time. i’ve seen people i’ve met for the first time and spent an evening with bubbling up as friend recommendations instantly 10 years ago already, i’d assume they’ve gotten a lot better at it by now

    • greenskye@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Ok, so data used was:

      • My search history
      • Knows I’m friends with her
      • Knows both of us were in same location (either location or same wifi)

      Ergo, friends search data in similar locations will be used as part of your advertising profile?

      Wonder why I don’t get more makeup ads or something. Since the same should be true for stuff she searches for.

      • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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        3 months ago

        That’s just a tiny tiny part of it.

        And on the other end are the actual ads, which are part of marketing campaigns. Where each campaign can define a specific target demographic (doesn’t have to, but usually they do as it’s just wasting money otherwise).

        So for makeup the ad might target white single women in the age of 16 to 45 who live in better income areas for example.

        I bet you have a hundred conversations with your friends where you didn’t receive a fitting ad afterwards.