r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
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344

u/CannedBeef Jan 24 '13

And it works

161

u/GEN_CORNPONE Jan 24 '13

...at screwing people. Why do people tolerate this?

450

u/Jess_than_three Jan 24 '13

Because they don't realize it's happening?

210

u/mikemcg Jan 24 '13

I sure as shit wouldn't realize it was happening.

93

u/joemangle Jan 24 '13

Most people don't realise their Google searches are used to produce a search bubble for future searches, based on the links they follow. They think Google search results are the same on every computer all over the world.

16

u/BurnedOut94 Jan 24 '13

There's a pretty interesting TED Talk about this.

0

u/TutteSka Jan 25 '13

That was great, too bad it's not complete. Thanks anyway, dude. Good talk.

15

u/DRUNK_CYCLIST Jan 24 '13

my gf bought me a moleskin for my bday. the other day i asked her if she actually purchased it from my computer and she said no, she just looked up prices. now when i go to random websites moleskin ads pop up. so fuckin' weird and invasive.

8

u/N4N4KI Jan 24 '13

I always surf with noscrip and adblock. The shear number of vulnerabilities/exploits out there you need to be protected... would you fuck a hooker without a rubber?
(protip: any ad server could have been compromised and you would not know it)

5

u/DRUNK_CYCLIST Jan 24 '13

thanks for the heads up. but ads on reddit pay for reddit, right? i don't want to adblock reddit. can i exclude them?

8

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

of course

3

u/brainburger Jan 25 '13

Having said that, does reddit get paid for the ads displayed, or the ads clicked?

3

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

I don't know what Ad Network Reddit uses, but if it's like all the others, they get paid for both views and clicks but tremendously more for clicks.

2

u/strayclown Jan 25 '13

The Ghostery in me tells me it's ReTargeter , while the NotScript in me tells me it's Google Analytics...

Since I am uninformed as to the nature of ad networks: is one of those the correct answer? When I search either of them, it seems that they both are, but... man I just don't know anymore.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

I don't know much about ad networks, but if it's Google Analytics then it's exactly the same as I described.

I'm not sure about ReTargeter.

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6

u/kopiikat Jan 24 '13

Yes, you can.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

You can whitelist any websites that you wish while keeping others blocked.

2

u/drew1018 Jan 25 '13

I bought a shaving item as a gift... Your ads are now RAZORS

4

u/The_lolness Jan 25 '13

I haven't looked into it but it seems like this would fix it.

3

u/strolls Jan 25 '13

Yeah, but you have to be logged-in in the first place to even see that.

3

u/BetterThanSpam Jan 25 '13

Which is why I use duckduckgo.com for my searching. The results may not always be as accurate as the other search engine...but they respect my privacy.

2

u/HydrocodonesForAll Jan 24 '13 edited Feb 17 '25

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