I'm in a position to finally buy my grail gun - a Weatherby Mark V Deluxe in 7mm Mag. I can't say how long I've longed for this rifle but it's been decades.

I happened to be Googling it today looking for a decent price and clicked on a link for Sportsmans Warehouse. Not ten minutes later, I'm getting emails from Sportman's Warehouse. I've never bought anything from them online, yet somehow or another, they've got my email address.

Motherfuckers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the internet is the greatest and the worst invention in human history. Say goodbye to your privacy.

Just curious: were you using the google search engine or are you using the word google here generically for search? And was the email sent to a gmail account or some other domain? Just curious about the dependency on Google products here or not. What are the mechanics of this if it’s actually deterministic?

Yep, Google search engine. Yahoo email.

Interesting. How does google become aware of your yahoo email address? And did they feed it to SW or did SW mine for your address? And assuming you have other email addresses across various domains, why did it pick your yahoo email address? Was the search returned link an ad based link? Would you have received an email if you didn't click on the search link but rather directly typed in SW webpage and navigated to the product of interest?

Rhetorical. Curiosity. Just wondering how this all works.

BTW, completely agree w/ your rant. There should be lines that corporations shouldn't cross - it should be cases of do and ask for forgiveness when caught. They should just not violate privacy ever. I'd rather pay for anonymous search that was private than have them build an everlasting profile of me.

It's like we can't go to a store down the street and just browse and window shop. To find and enter the store, we need to first give our name, SSN, address, and anal diameter.

It's known as "Retargeting".

Yahoo mail, Gmail, Outlook for Windows and other email apps can be mailed to when you browse the sites, and using browsers that have sign in information including email, phone numbers and mailing addresses.

And some venders permit your information for them to be shared to the "remarketing" that another vendor uses, so you visit the site and the backchannel sharing of information results in you getting email from the place you just visited without giving them any personal information.

Or

"Welcome (again) to the new world, where you are the product. In case you've forgotten. We haven't..."

I don’t always spend the time but occasionally I block and/or unsubscribe from emails.

I have bought from Sportsmen Warehouse before, shipped to a nearby store, worked ok.

I’ve curtailed gun buying, but when looking I usually check ‘Grab-A-Gun’ first. They make it easy, already have a convenient local FFL on file. At the very least, one has a baseline price to start with.

Pro tip, set up an account, let it sit, they will send a $20 off code to your email.

I made the mistake of talking with a friend about taking a Caribbean cruise. Alexa was listening. Now lots of cruise deals await me. I need to shut her mic off!

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the internet is the greatest and the worst invention in human history. Say goodbye to your privacy.

From your lips to God’s ears.

I preach about it to my people all the time. Get off the fucking phone. Use the internet like us crusty bitches did back in the day. Desktop, Laptop, Tablet. Google Fu, etc. Fuck all the apps. Use the internet like the library when you were a kid. It’s an entire world library at your fingertips and you can do amazing things with the information you can learn. What do these dopamine crack heads do with it? They seek out and find ways to waste time.

My pet peeve is businesses and politicians sending me text messages. But I also loathe having to “unsubscribe” from email bullshit then I have to report it as spam. All of this shit is nothing more than marketers trying to jam it in your ass.

Strangest one for me was looking into a plastic storage bin full of stuff I haven’t looked at in ten years. There was a cardboard box inside that had trailer hitch lock in it. I was the only person in the house, the only person who knew about the lock, I don’t talk to myself, my phone was in my pocket, and I didn’t even pull the lock out of the box.

The next day, I started getting emails from the company that makes the lock. I mean zero communication with them since buying the lock ten years ago, just see the lock, and start getting emails from the company the next day. The lock is just a big hunk of steel with an aluminium puck lock; no electronics. No cameras in the house, not a word spoken. They’d have to be mind readers to know I looked at it.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
My pet peeve is businesses and politicians sending me text messages... All of this shit is nothing more than marketers trying to jam it in your ass.

Have you seen The Minority Report? Not hard to imagine that kind of push advertising is too far off in our future.

I have YouTube TV. I've noticed ads on my TV from websites I've visited. For instance, I bought a Vedder holster, I now get Vedder holster commercials.