How do those ads know where I live?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

"I use spyware software religiously" That's the reason...

Ok, Ok... I guess what he really meant was antispyware.

Okay, dumb comment people. His answer is accurate and the logical place to start. Once the adserver resolves a close approximation of your location this information can be included in a cookie. If the adserver is part of a network like Advertising.com or Revenue Science it can fine tune depending on the sites your frequent. So if this guy looks at the Baltimore Sun site and checks the local job postings the server can give the Baltimore location in the cookie another point. This will help validate the association. You can get a lot more sophisticated but starting from this base is all you need. No nefarious plots between Amazon.com and any other advertiser. Sheesh, take off your foil hats.

I think the article is right about it locating the ISP I got ads for nacogdoches, an unusual name, when
I just started using the computer there, there is no other way the could have done this besides the ip ranges. I might look for a good proxy server to see if it counters their technique, which it should.

Probably they are using a database with IP's associated to regions/cities, you can find information about IP addresses too using http://www.ipgp.net

Whil using a proxy (e.g. hidemyass.com) you will get a defauly banner ad and not one labeling you city.

Case in point:
There is one of those "cam-whore" banner ads that show the model with a piece of paper says "I love ". Viewed through a proxy the same piece of paper says "I love my town". Kinda cool!

explore this little geo address locator:
http://excathedra.net/Resource/Programming/GeoAddress.aspx

How about: http://www.ip-adress.com/
Using your IP information... pretty damn close I would say.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Oh yeah, only *300 MILES* off for me.

Sorry, but these services are simple NOT reliable and RARELY lead people close
enough to you home for anything significant.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFHargKCMEe9B/8oqERAjGwAJ9RlFUAqaVzM+dM5hTRr3fR1MWTegCfeMul
wOctEKl4p7HmgDTLz5eixdI=
=UkxJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I don't think anyone here really knows what they are talking about. When I go on a site for the first time, the ads mention the exact town where I live. My ISP is located over 500 miles from me so the ads are not locking onto my ISP, they know where I am. How is this possible? I saw similar on a chat room where a guests info would include their location and I used to freak people out by guessing correctly where they were, I did't think about privacy at that time. There must be a way to block your info.

I don't think anyone here really knows what they are talking about. When I go on a site for the first time, the ads mention the exact town where I live. My ISP is located over 500 miles from me so the ads are not locking onto my ISP, they know where I am. How is this possible? I saw similar on a chat room where a guests info would include their location and I used to freak people out by "guessing" correctly where they were, I did't think about privacy at that time. There must be a way to block your info.

To post a comment on "How do those ads know where I live?", please return to that article's main page.