Dodgy Spam Marketing

[Kickstart]

Hi

We all get spam, but this one annoyed me.

A while ago I was browsing for something online on Google. Followed a link to a site, which had a few things I was interested in and would have gone back that night to buy. At work so wasn't buying anything at that moment.

Left the site and 2 mins later I had an email from the site, with the items I had looked at.

I hadn't typed anything in on the site, certainly not my email address or the like and had never been to that site before.

All I can think of is that they managed to link to records of my email gained through cross site collection of details / cookies. Something like the way Google Analytics works (or maybe actual Google Analytics sourced data).

But a bit of a pig. Pity anyone who goes trying to buy a secret present for someone and lands up with a page sent with the details to that person!

Anyway, seems the spam is generated via these gits:-

https://privacy.criteoemail.com

All the best

Katy
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[M.C]

What email provider (gmail)?

[Kickstart]

Hi

Yes it is gmail, hence one (extra) reason it could be coming via Google Analytics data.

All the best

Katy
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Rogerborg]

Are you Do-Not-Tracking? Just out of interest, not that I think it matters.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Jayy]

It's action tracking and cookies, you can place a tracking code on a website and set your email marketing campaign to trigger when certain actions are taken on the website.

I.e., user clicks in to "Electronics" category via a link. This link is being tracked via the email marketing software and automatically adds you in to some automation chain, i.e. "General Electronics" which is a series of emails designed to show you related products as well as the one you looked at.

Personally think it's a bit unethical to do this, if you didn't enter an email address to sign up for marketing, they shouldn't be allowed to track you via cookies and then email you.

Orrrrr... that website is affiliated to another website you have been on and therefore sharing data, could be a number of things.

[Kickstart]

[ScaredyCat]

Make sure you log out of services like arseface when you're not using them. Those discussion sections that appear at the bottom that have your arseface avatar are the give away that you just told arseface which site and page you've been to. Similar for Disqus n'all that shizzle..
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Honda CBF125 ➝ NC700X
Honda CBF125 ↳ Speed Triple

[Kickstart]

Hi

Work computer and never used Facebook on it.

But Disqus is a possibility which I hadn't thought of.

All the best

Katy
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Jayy]

[Kickstart]

Hi

I can see how it is possible, just dubious about a large enough cross reference network beyond Google Analytics. Either way it requires a very wide network of cross site scripts, with also a method of allow cross site communication, and further having those scripts having access to form data.

Google analytics is as common as dirt and quite invasive, but not sure of any others which have managed to get into enough sites (and they pretty much need to be added by the site owner) to be viable.

All the best

Katy
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Jayy]

Mate, seriously, some of these ad networks are absolutely colossal and have their hooks in most websites in some shape or form.

You've been cross referenced, simple as that

Unless it was magic.