I was a bit surprised to see an ad for the ceramic Department 56 National Lampoon Christmas Vacation The Griswold Family Tree [1] on FaceGoogleLinkedMySpaceBookPlusIn. It was surprising because yesterday, Bunny came across a picture of an inflatable National Lampoon Christmas Vacation The Griswold Family Tree [2] and was threatening her brother with it. She did a search and found the one on Amazon and sent her brother the link.
Now, why would I be getting the ad on LinkedMyFaceGoogleInSpaceBookPlus? Is FaceGoogleLinkedMyBookPlusInSpace listening in to us via our phones [3]? Does the NSA (No Such Agengency, I mean, the National Security Agency) [4] have a sideline of selling information to advertisers to help their bottom line? Is LinkedMyFaceGooglePlusInSpaceBook psychic (or psychotic—could go either way)?
No. It's just simple tracking via the web [“Simple,” he says. Ha! —Editor].
Bunny did a search for the Griswold Family Tree (or something along those lines) and some of the resulting pages she visited included bits of of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or Javascript or images that said “person from such-n-such IP (Internet Protocol) address did a search for this.” And some of that tracking is either done directly by GoogleLinkedMyFacePlusInSpaceBook or is sold to them. Bunny does not have a LinkedMyFaceGoogleSpaceBookPlusIn account (she did at one point, several years ago, for all of five hours) but that doesn't mean FaceGoogleLinkedMyPlusInSpaceBook doesn't keep track of her. They do [5].
But what does that have to do with me?
Well, I do have a MyFaceGoogleLinkedInSpaceBookPlus account. And GoogleLinkedMyFacePlusInSpaceBook knows I log in from the same IP address that did a search for “The Griswold Family Tree” and while I may not have been the one that did the search (since the search wasn't tied to an account—and just because I'm not logged in doesn't mean LinkedMyFaceGoogleInSpaceBookPlus can't track my viewing habits on the web), I did come from an IP address that did! And thus, I too, might be interested in the ceramic Department 56 National Lampoon Christmas Vacation The Griswold Family Tree [6].
No, not really.
[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35639549
[5] http://mashable.com/2013/06/26/facebook-shadow-profiles/#eJwrUePSMZqM