By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
It only took a few minutes for Home Depot to tell the world I visited its website. Now, my home computer reminds me of the mistake I made in providing Home Depot the chance to earn my business. I went to look at one of their products and got spammed as a result. It is truly a sign of disrespect Home Depot shows its customers for walking into its digital doors. Well, I can now add Home Depot to my list of “Fired Corporations Replaced By Small Businesses.”
It seems that window shopping is best left to actual windows instead of Microsoft Windows.
My beef with Home Depot started when I needed to buy a Water Bath Canner, a large 21 quart pot used to boil mason jars for food preservation. I thought I had one around the house but couldn’t find it. A few days ago I bought about 150 pounds of tomatoes, pears, and apples from the Mennonite grocery store nearby to can for the winter. I didn’t see a water canner there so I thought I would look at Home Depot’s website–they have a store nearby–and enquire if they had one. I used their search option with the words “canning pots” and a page popped up with several pressure canners. I clicked on one, read what it had to offer, and decided to pass.
I needed to move onto other things and about two or three minutes later I decided to catch up on today’s news. I opened the website for a major news source and immediately I was handed the first “Thank you” for considering Home Depot; a banner ad wanting to sell me pressure cookers from Home Depot. Then came a second and a third in a row from other major websites. All I could do was roll my eyes in dismay. I probably should have known better than to visit without an anonymous web-client, but I didn’t suspect Home Depot would sink low enough to resort to web spamming–much less selling/providing my information to third parties–I thought it would be o.k.
I really do not think Yahoo News and CNN need to know that I visited Home Depot to buy a pot. It makes me wonder what other information Home Depot is willing to hand out so readily. Luckily for me I did not visit the FBI’s website after Home Depot’s showing I am interested in Pressure Cookers.
Previously, I wrote how I fired my corporate pharmacy and returned to the Mom & Pop pharmacy in town. I should have taken my own advice for Home Depot.
Perhaps the Mennonites down the road will have one for sale. It’s now Sunday so I will probably have to wait an extra day. Oh well, at least I know with certainty I won’t see an ad for canning pots in the program card for the United Methodist Church when I attend service next Sunday.
Yeah, I am sure that Home Depot can articulate that buried two pages below within the fine print of their “privacy statement warning” they can claim that I consented to this by visiting their site. Or, that they did not violate the terms of this so called agreement.
Well, here is my privacy statement: Goodbye.
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
I work out at USU near the soccer field. While visiting several weeks ago I young woman appeared, walked onto the field with artificial turf, and pointed a hand held instrument at the turf. She explained that it was her job to test the temperature of the turf, which absorbs heat like it’s going out style. The U cancels games when the turf exceeds a certain temperature. This was the second time someone mentioned extreme field temperatures caused by the turf. The underside mesh is black. The woman said the vendor offers a cooler white mesh but the U refused it because it was so costly.
Later that day I returned home . Since the above incident my only internet contact was my VOIP, on which I described the above incident to my friend. While still talking to my friend I fired up this laptop. Exactly like the above author, I visited my favorite news site. I have never in my life talked about nor cared about hand held digital thermal-sensing device. Starting that moment and lasting for a couple weeks, at many sites I visited staring staring at me are eBay ads for portable hand-held digital thermal-sensing devices.
The only connection was my verbal conversation on VOIP with my friend with whom I was talking. No more than two-three minutes elapsed from my describing the event to the appearance of the ads.
For a while, before I got ‘proactive’ with ad block, my browser was plugged up with spam adds on the side of the screen.
If I looked at weed eaters….bam! a ton of weed eaters. I finally got sick of it and daily would search for something pretty. Butterflies. Birds. Flowers. Yarn. BAM! Lots of pretty colors to look at instead of work boots or spatulas.
😀
As others have said…..Ad Block Plus. In addition clear your cookies periodically from your web browser.
The stores are just relentless in trying to get you to sign up and give your email address.
The other day my husband and I went to Sears. He wanted to buy a couple of digital air pressure read out devices. The kind you use on tires. These were really nifty because you get a digital read and the are very accurate. He uses them for establishing pressure in the bladder tanks that are part of the water systems he installs.
However…..after finally getting a couple of guys to find the item….they were very nice and very helpful….they were persistent in trying to get our email address.
“No, thanks. We get enough emails as it is. Plus we don’t live here (in this town)”
OK they said….but you can opt out of the emails if you like. and many other sales pitches like that.
Hubby said: “Guess what, I’m gonna be proactive and opt out NOW!!.”
Geeze each time you go to big box store they want to put you on their spam list.
The internet is powerful. This blog has 28 Million views so far. Today Home Depot stock is down .02% in after hours trading SINCE this blog post went up. So, those who short stocks know when Home Depot is a bad company and those who short stocks read this blog. I looked on Cloud Nine. Home Depot does not have a “scam” per se. The do what they say: “merely share” your internet address.
Down here in New Orleans the locals that I know shop in a local hardware store and not a chain store.
Home Depot should suffer for sharing your internet address with others.
Darren knows a lot about the internet. I think he has a target on his back by some disgruntled folks.
Newspaper websites are so loaded w/ crap I sometimes think I’m going to have seizures w/ all the flashing.
“It’s to bad you have no actual idea how Google ads work. If you did you would realize how asinine this post is.”
1). So how do the Google adds work?
2) Why should the technical method for placing the advertising, affect how we feel about being tracked through the internet?
Regardless of the purpose or technique used, why should anyone outside law enforcement create a permanent record of our activities?
While advertising seems to finance the Internet just as it does TV, how many people actually buy stuff because they saw an ad for it on a website they linked to? Perhaps younger people do but my sense is that people across the US are buying much less than ever before. They buy fewer homes so don’t need new furnishings, kitchen gear or landscaping gear. They get married less, and prefer mobility to materialism. Sure they buy electronics, but not much of anything else. I’m guessing that Home Depot’s customers are mostly over 55 and that type of store will disappear in the next few years.
shstraub is right — your ignorance of how online advertising works is making you claim privacy violations where there are none. Home Depot didn’t give your information to all those other websites, that’s not how it works. As written, this article is possibly libel, as it is stating Home Depot took unethical and possibly illegal actions that it didn’t take.
I agree with Nick in his comment just above. Regarding Starbucks. Why do people go there and spend so much money on some large dumb looking cup of coffee? They come out with styrofoam cups and walk around like they are bragging about being there while they slurp. It is sort of a testament to their belief that their itShay don’t stink. There is a Starbucks near our marina where the dogpac lives. For some reason there are dog turds all over the parking lot.
I once googled men’s shoes and clicked on a pair of boots I liked. I didn’t order anything. Since then, those same boots and similar ones have appeared in the commerce column on the right side of my computer screen on thousands of occasions. It doesn’t matter what website I go to, the boots come back.
I don’t mind. The reason I don’t mind is because I know why it appears: somebody wants my money, and I have the choice to ignore it, or to buy something. I can see why others are outraged – and sometimes it annoys me too – but I feel I get something in return and, most importantly, I do not feel vulnerable to theft, identity theft or fraud because the people who paid for this cookie bit are in the open market. I trust they want a legal transaction, and just want a better way to sell their wares. But, I know I don’t know enough about how the internet works, and I certainly may change my mind one day.
But the important fact is that the ONLY reason they know it is it makes simple commerce easier. In other words, I feel secure about WHY the companies want the metadata.
My standard is: I feel less concern about what other people know about me than about what they DO with what they know about me. For that reason, I trust the government LESS than the people involved in simple commerce. I have seen what the government DOES with my metadata, and I have less trust in its motives. The government wants something from me that is more precious than my money. That means I will MORE vigorously resist the government’s examination of the data than companies involved in open commerce.
But, as I said, this is only preliminary.
Having grown up in a family restaurant business, and operated my own business for 30 years, I always support local business over large corporations. I passed that on to my kids w/ varying degrees of success. With young people, they have the opportunity to break the Starbucks syndrome. There are many locally owned coffee shops. That’s all I frequent.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/
Get Firefox browser with the following addons: Ghostery, Better Privacy, WOT, ADBlock Plus
I guess online businesses just want to maximise revenue.
The science geek
http://www.thesciencegeek.org
Welcome to the wonderful world of online shopping. It really creeped me out the first time it happened. . . I had looked at a particular item, and minutes later I was seeing ads on Facebook. And it isn’t just large corporate type businesses. . .it happens online all the time.
Robert Scheer sympathizes with you.
http://www.truthdig.com/theyknoweverythingaboutyou
Of course this form of advertising invades my privacy. It also reinforces the already know fact that when you are on the internet you are never alone. I think it is wrong no matter who does it a Corproations or a government.
I’m more of a privacy fanatic than most people and I hate the idea of companies (or governments even worse) tracking my travels in cyberspace. I’ve experienced the phenomenon of seeing products advertised on web pages I’m on immediately after looking at them on another website. And days later, even weeks later, and even after I have actually purchased those products. Yeah, it seems like an invasion of privacy.
But I ran an advertising agency for more than 20 years and have a network of 150 websites from which I have received a certain amount of income for the last 16 years. I understand the objectives of advertising and try to keep up on the latest innovations in that field, especially digital advertising. I know there is no personal information connected to or revealed by these annoyingly obvious ads, and this is just a gimmick that online marketers and merchants use to try to increase sales. As much as I feel I should hate it, this is just a harmless advertising tool in an increasingly electronic world. No big deal, really.
I also enjoy the convenience of shopping online and finding out what products are available with what options and at what prices, where they are sold, and whether I can get them delivered to my door. All this without leaving the comfort of my computer keyboard, having to get dressed to go shopping, or having to drive to a store somewhere to buy what I want. I can save time and money online.
So the real question becomes: Am I really so annoyed by this harmless form of advertising which doesn’t actually invade my privacy that I am willing to give up the comfort and convenience of shopping online? If the websites I visit weren’t showing me ads for products I was considering, they would be showing me ads for things I probably had no interest in at all, or maybe something I found even more interesting. What’s the difference? In any event, those ads won’t prevent me from buying (or not) whatever I please.
It’s to bad you have no actual idea how Google ads work. If you did you would realize how asinine this post is.