Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

A used car salesman who you spoke to once at a party and who knows a couple of facts about you which they refer to in every damn sentence.

"Hey so last time I saw you you talked about nail polish, I've got a friend selling some... Did you want cheap tickets to a nail-painting seminar? There's a nail & manicure kit on Amazon!"

Only it wasn't even you at the party, it was your friend that did one Google search for nail polish months ago and now you're forever The Nail Polish Guy.



At least with Amazon, when I search for a gag gift, I can tell them later to ignore my page view for recommendations. I would love ability for same with Google.


You can disassosciate your interests from google by going here : https://www.google.com/ads/preferences and make it permanent by using IBA opt-out plugin : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iba-opt-out-by-goo...

You can control what kind of data Google is allowed to collect about you from Google's settings dashboard : https://www.google.com/settings/dashboard


If you know in advance that you're about to search for a gag gift, open a new private browsing window.


Yeah, these days I use a private window if I'm searching for anything that would throw off my normal profile. That plus adblock means it hasn't been an issue for a really long time so maybe it's better these days.

I just always found it really annoying when I'd spend a couple of days researching a purchase, and then for the next month I was getting ads for the thing I'd just bought. I don't need one of those any more, I've got one!




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: