Behavioural advertising and Wiggle

I've noticed some scary-ass Wiggle adverts recently that seemed to follow me around.

First they appeared in a RSS feed on Google Reader.
Then I visited Slashdot and the same advert appeared there.
Then I was looking at the Hounslow Guardian website and the same advert.

This wouldn't have been so strange except the Wiggle advert was showing an item that I'd looked at and decided against. It was basically pushing the item again and again as I went around other websites.

It CREEPED ME OUT.

Plus, I've already decided not to buy the item (a bottle cage clamp of all things, hence my noticing it following me around... who would advertise a bottle cage clamp!?).

Anyhow, so Wiggle are now heavily using a behavioural advertising service called Criteo.

And that's weird, and creepy. Ew, they spy on your habits and follow you around.

They claim it's anonymous, and it may well be... but it's also FUCKING CREEPY.

Anyhow, what I've discovered is that you can opt out of this creepy big brother bullshit by visiting this page:
http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Just select all of the advertising sites and hit the Select All button and then Submit... and done.

Do you use Google services much?

I have noticed that recently as well. Equally creeped out and have been aggressively purging cookies. Much appreciated.

Ive had this with wiggle as well! i thought i was going a bit crazy and tried to ignore it, glad its not just me..

Do you use Google services much?

Oh andyp. I have no photo of a sigh to post, please imagine one instead.

is it worth opting out of all of those options? Or are some needed for general use of the internet?

the times website it keeps on offering me izumi chains
wierd i never even knew rupert murdoch owned a string of bike shops

is it worth opting out of all of those options? Or are some needed for general use of the internet?

NONE of them are needed for general use of the internet.

UNLESS your definition of general use is that every website with advertising can show you things you were looking at weeks ago.

Gmail won't break by opting out of the behavioural tracking cookies for Google Doubleclick for example.

Adblock for chrome/firefox is the best thing on the internets!

Oh andyp. I have no photo of a sigh to post, please imagine one instead.

:-)

Works every time.

thanks velocio, opting out now.

viva la revolution!

thanks for the info.
I know i once looked at a pair of lightweight clincher road wheels but do not want to be reminded of the fact on every news/blog/info site i visit

Adblock for chrome/firefox is the best thing on the internets!

Can you get adblock for Chrome?

I've got it for Firefox but I thought Google liked advertising too much to allow it. I once saw something about using a proxy server, but it all looked a bit confusing.

Also, writing a list of words like "suicide" "tragedy" and "kill" at the bottom of your emails will make you seem like a psycho, but it also prevents the advertising on gmail.

It's not spying on you, it's just reading your cookies and then building a banner based on what you've looked at. Pretty clever IMHO. LFGSS reads your cookies too to let you log in automatically (i think) OMFG it's spying on me too!!!

Advertising's a necessary evil on the internet - frankly I'd rather have relevant stuff like this showing up rather than "rock hard abs in 2 weeks!!!" banners.

My abs are pasty and soft and staying that way.

*Disclaimer - I work in web advertising, on a cycling site actually, so I'm biased. No we don't allow Criteo banners.

I know very well what it is doing technically, it's what it is doing socially that I take umbrage to.

It represents Wiggle tracking your behaviour on their site, and then (importantly) allowing a third party to access that data.

That is what is creepy, that your behaviour on a site is not only monitored but that it is shared with a third party for no other reason than to hound a dollar out of you.

Of course there are things that have to be tracked for these sites to work (HTTP being stateless and all that), but this is beyond what is necessary for a technical implementation of an ecommerce site and well into a creepy big brother thing.

Just because you do not value your privacy doesn't mean I don't value mine.

when using amazon it can be useful to look at the prices for items it suggests to you

then go back having disabled all the cookies and you will find all the prices have changed if you are not recognised - frequently in your favour if amazon thinks you are a new customer

when using amazon it can be useful to look at the prices for items it suggests to you

Still fine... if you're on Amazon.

Not so fine if you were buying a new cushion for Aunt Mary and all of the sites your were browsing had cushions in their adverts.

Worse if you were buying a secret present for a loved one, or were buying stuff on the sneak (hiding how much you spend on bikes), and then your partner uses your computer and browses some entirely unrelated site and now gets it revealed to them what you've been looking at, how much it costs, etc.

I don't think it's too much to ask that our expectation that our interaction with a site is between us and that site is just that... no one else.

...Then I was looking at the Hounslow Guardian website...
"Ew, they spy on your habits and follow you around."

I think VB has been taken over by a west London dwelling American teen.
Tut tut, you will visit the Hounslow Guardian.

Thanks however for the opt out, let's see what happens next time I visit wwtdd.com

Tut tut, you will visit the Hounslow Guardian.

Followed a link from The Guardian (also showing bottle cage clamps) on how corrupt my local MP is. The Keens are truly dire... they almost single-handedly have put me off voting Labour for a long long time. They are totally corrupt and even have been successfully sued for "breaching their duty of care" towards a constituent because they're bone idle.

Fair play - it certainly does go a lot further than things have before.

Thing is Wiggle are business, and a very clever one at that. They track everything and act accordingly. Giving this data to a third party is, granted, a little shady - but said data may well be handled responsibly, and even if they don't the fact that I've been looking at buying brake calipers this week isn't really something I'm shy about.

I realise for some that this approach crosses a line - criteo are pleasingly responsible letting you turn off the tracking, but frankly if you’re obsessed with your privacy than you should be clearing all browsing data and cookies every time you close your browser.

I for one am happy to give up a little irrelevant information in order to see ads for stuff I’m clearly interested in. I’m even OK with Gmail reading my mail and giving me relevant text ads at the top – I think it’s cool, and I’ve found it quite handy occasionally. When I have something to hide I’m far more careful.

Werid, I noticed the same thing too. Also the same when looking for bits in halfords, whenever theres a halfords advert it has the same stuff on I was looking at ages ago.

I saw these a while back. I have since stopped using wiggle. One customer lost.

Oh, one thing, the opt out is done by cookie. So, if you clear your cookies, or whatever, you need to opt out again, as far as I can tell...

My thoughts down more succinctly than I have thus far, in an open letter thing to Wiggle:

1) Regardless of what disclaimers you put in your user agreements, it is not cool to give behavioural information to a third party in any form.

I don't care for the letter of the law, I care for the relationship between the business and the customer and to be treated with respect and dignity.

If you sent someone down the High St after me to watch what I was doing and then to opportunistically to place flash cards in the cafés I visited, I would rightly be indignant and feel harassed as if I was being singled out. Think about how substantially different this kind of advertising is from that experience.

2) It's pushy, plain and simple.

If you were a pushy salesman, I would walk out and not come back.

Think very carefully about pissing off your customers. It's well known that it's harder to make new customers than it is to keep the ones you have.

The Keens are truly dire... they almost single-handedly have put me off voting Labour for a long long time. They are totally corrupt and even have been successfully sued for "breaching their duty of care" towards a constituent because they're bone idle.

Big house by mine is the one where she was claiming the second home allowance & had the squatters in because it was empty.

Ann Keen is a thieving old bag. They should lock her up.