Comments for How do those ads know where I live?

Comment from LaurieP on 2008-04-12

2008-04-12T22:05:12Z

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.

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from LaurieP on 2008-04-12

2008-04-12T22:04:18Z

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.

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-12-20

2007-12-20T18:44:17Z

-----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

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

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from J. Doe on 2007-12-18

2007-12-18T20:53:09Z

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

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from Raman on 2007-11-27

2007-11-27T17:32:29Z

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

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from Anonymous on 2007-03-07

2007-03-07T23:58:12Z

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!

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Comment from Lucian on 2007-02-10

2007-02-10T20:27:11Z

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

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Comment from J on 2007-01-30

2007-01-31T00:03:15Z

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.

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from vitriolic1 on 2006-09-11

2006-09-12T00:56:18Z

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.

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Comment from Mikywutz on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T18:27:00Z

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

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

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Comment from Paul on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T16:53:40Z

Another thing to keep in mind is that often times they don't know where you live. I noticed that banner ads on dictionary.com were targeting my location. When I deleted my cookies and went back it had a classmates.com add to find students from "West Springfield High School" or "Martin Luther King High School". There just so happens to be a "West Springfield" high school in my area, but there are also 5 zillion West Springfields and Martin Luther Kings all over the US.

So sometimes they just guess with a common city name or something.

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Comment from Ace on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T14:27:54Z

I wonder if they may be using the same technique google uses to geo target users: First response to DNS query. Typing www.google.com in the address bar is translated to www.google.ca (canadian location) Geo position ad farms and the first response wins. Usually this means that the nearest to the user reponds with a local server address, and thus local versions of the ads.

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from AskMike on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T14:19:05Z

Cookies,Cookies is real suspect!

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Comment from Jyothi Karthik Raja on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T13:07:50Z

I agree with Balke. Very poorly researched article. Like someone with a few extra minutes in hand decided to write quickly about something he had very pedastrian knowledge to begin with.

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Comment from Rick Wieland on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T13:06:07Z

So what's your point Blake? You say other websites get to read the Amazon.com cookie? Since the web browsers submits the cookie only to the site it belongs too this can't be happening (at least in a computer that hasn't been hijacked by some sort of adware/malware)

And if you say Amazon.com is illegally selling private info to relate personal data and IP address how would this guys (Amazon.com) make sure every pal behind an IP is the same guy they recorded the info once when we all get different IPs assigned randomly when we reset our routers?

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Comment from eeeeee on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T12:46:52Z

uhhh, cookies anyone? check out your cookie cache - you'll see various ad engines set cookies. they only have to know you once to track you from there. it isn't hard. Philip Greenspun wrote about this back in, oh, 1997 or so: http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/user-tracking (that page has since been updated).

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Comment from Blake Patterson on 2006-03-28

2006-03-28T12:16:03Z

The fact that the word "cookie" and likely the word "Amazon.com" were'nt mentioned suggests to me that the author might well have done a bit more research before "answering" this baffling queston.

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Comment from Dylan on 2006-02-15

2006-02-15T19:23:51Z

Wow, that's some scary stuff!

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Comment from samir on 2006-02-11

2006-02-11T12:32:39Z

very useful leo
i appreciate that
my best regards

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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Comment from samir on 2006-02-11

2006-02-11T12:28:18Z

very
useful leo
my best regards

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A comment on: How do those ads know where I live?

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