How did the Ad Networks find my search? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So a bit ago I got an add for "canned rambutan". I had looked up Rambutan a few days prior after hearing it mentioned 10 hours into the video game Baby Steps. I wasn't using a VPN at the time and I didn't have fingerprinting protections active but I only mentioned it to a few sources (according to my browser history) all of which generally are implied to be private.

Which of these do you think is the reason the ad networks know?

Wikipedia
Startpage Search
Duckduckgo Search
My ISP
Firefox
My Firefox Extensions
Kubuntu
CachyOS
The omnipotent algorithm connecting my mentions of Baby Steps with my progress through the game.
Does this only make sense if my browser history is incomplete?
Maybe I was using DNS over HTTPS via Cloudflare at the time of my search.

Any guesses as to where the weak link is?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You say you were not using a vpn. Then the site has your ip and probably has meta/google ads or other shit running on it and links the product with your ip.

This data is added to some data broker/ ad network and you see an ad when you visit a site using this network as you have "signalled" interest in the product by viewing the product page the first time.

[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago

Except the only sites I visited where I mentioned rambutan were Duckduckgo, Startpage, and Wikipedia.

this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2025

38 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

43480 readers

1638 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS