Who does Google think you are anyway?

[Fourstring]

This is kind of neat.


Click the link, Google's adsense will tell you which demographic they have you pegged as, which in turn affects the ads you see.  I'm a 54 y/o male, apparently.  

[Giaka]

I'm pegged.

[Kneescrubber]

Did someone say cookies?  

[KLRchickie]

45-54 year old male

Likely something to do with motorcycles & VW parts

What's a girl supposed to search for?  Lipstick?!

[Justin]

Cookies are disabled

Your browser's cookies seem to be disabled. Ads Preferences will not work until you enable cookies in your browser. How do I enable cookies?

[Meemuh]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

 

[CLAY]

They nailed me.  

[antvq]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

 


Funny, you can tell who has their stuff locked down by the responses here  

[dm_gsxr]

Since the cookie is tied to the browser you're using (and machine generally), that I'm 55-64, male, check out guitars, motorcycles, and look up recipes about meat and seafood is accurate for the iPad I'm currently on. I wonder what it would say about my main machine downstairs and my work laptop and two desktops.

(I'm 54 but will be 55 in April so it's not wholly off.)

Carl

[miles]

Your categories
Below you can review the interests and inferred demographics that Google has associated with your cookie. You can remove or edit these at any time.
Arts & Entertainment - Comics & Animation - Comics
Arts & Entertainment - Movies
Arts & Entertainment - TV & Video - Online Video
Arts & Entertainment - Visual Art & Design
Autos & Vehicles - Motorcycles
Beauty & Fitness - Body Art
Shopping - Apparel - Swimwear
World Localities - North America - USA - California - Southern California - Los Angeles


Swimwear?  Really?  

[napper]

I could do that.  Let's see, you visit st.n regularly, you must be a 45-54 yo male.    That's me.  That's 80% of you I've met.  

I think if google read fourstring's posts more closely, they'd guess 28-35 yo male, married with an infant.  (Am I close?)

[M.Brane]

Your categories
Below you can review the interests and inferred demographics that Google has associated with your cookie. You can remove or edit these at any time.
Arts & Entertainment - Music & Audio - Music Reference - Song Lyrics & Tabs
Autos & Vehicles - Motorcycles
Finance - Insurance - Auto Insurance
Shopping - Apparel
World Localities - North America - USA - Alaska


Your demographics
We infer your age and gender based on the websites you've visited. You can remove or edit these at any time.
Age: 45-54
Gender: Male


 Pretty damn close, and pretty damn creepy. There is some stuff missing though, and what's up with the Alaska thing?

[Orson]

I think Google considers anyone on ST.N is a 54 year old male...even bluepoof  

[Papa Lazarou]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

same here

[cultureslayer]

45-54 year old male

Likely something to do with motorcycles & VW parts

What's a girl supposed to search for?  Lipstick?!

I was a 35-44 year old male.  

[GTS_Rider]

They nicked me at the bottom of their age-range guess, just turned 45 a few months ago. It would be way cooler if they put a % guess on gender...  

I'm pretty boring, but at least they noticed my keen interest in Public Safety...  

Autos & Vehicles - Motorcycles
Business & Industrial
Computers & Electronics - Consumer Electronics
Computers & Electronics - Software - Multimedia Software - Photo & Video Software - Video File Formats & Codecs
Law & Government - Public Safety - Law Enforcement


Your demographics
We infer your age and gender based on the websites you've visited. You can remove or edit these at any time.
Age: 45-54
Gender: Male

[SuperHans]

Had me dead on.

[TBone]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

Me too.

[sodapop6620]

Some folks should run crap cleaner and malwarebytes every once in a while.  Google has no clue about me

[dm_gsxr]

For my work Mac:

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

Carl

[Cablebandit]

Fat, old, and slow.  That about covers it.

[Rincewind]

"You currently do not have an ‘id’ cookie.  Opt in to customize your ad preferences and tell Google which interest-based ads you'd prefer to see."  

I delete cookies religiously.  Why would I ever want to opt in on this?

[dm_gsxr]

And for my work Linux box:

You currently do not have an ‘id’ cookie.


So there  


Carl

[dm_gsxr]

The fun thing is I use Firefox on all my computers however I'm stuck with Safari on my iPad even though it crashes regularly. I've looked at other browsers but they all want a buck or more.

Carl

[HipGnosis]

This reminds me of the sitcom episode (Sienfeld?) where the characters TiVo thought he was 'gay'.

I'm going to google 'hello kitty tampon holster' every day for a while to see how long it takes for my 'demographic' to change.

[Bryan217]

"You currently do not have an ‘id’ cookie.  Opt in to customize your ad preferences and tell Google which interest-based ads you'd prefer to see."  

I delete cookies religiously.  Why would I ever want to opt in on this?

  AdBlocker Plus on Firefox and delete everything upon exit.

[jetapumper]

Some folks should run crap cleaner and malwarebytes every once in a while.  Google has no clue about me

+1. At least once a week if not more. And try Glary Utilities (also free). A better Reg cleaner than CCleaner.

They don't know squat about me.

Your categories and demographics
No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.


And that's the way I prefer it.

[cognosticator]

Male 35-44  

I am a young 62 years old though  

[Fourstring]

I could do that.  Let's see, you visit st.n regularly, you must be a 45-54 yo male.    That's me.  That's 80% of you I've met.  

I think if google read fourstring's posts more closely, they'd guess 28-35 yo male, married with an infant.  (Am I close?)

Nailed it, although I'm at the bottom of that range.  

Work computer requires cookies; most of our vendor websites need 'em to verify ID.  

[dm_gsxr]

Technically if you dump your cookies you just need to log in again to the sites. The sites maintain your credentials, cookies just save state information so you don't have to log in again.

And I don't use ccleaner, malwarebytes, or anything else and google doesn't seem to have any info on me other than on the iPad. I know Firefox used to have an option to disable cookies for sites you're not actually on (Accept third-party cookies). Now it has a "don't track me" checkbox. I don't know if it does the same thing though.

Yea, my Linux box has: Accept cookies from sites, which lets me maintain my logins for things like STN but a sub-checkbox for: Accept third-party cookies which I always disable. It doesn't seem to be available on my Mac which might explain the "no ID found" message on my Linux box but "don't have any tracking info" for the Mac.

Carl

Edit: Found it. On the Mac, the "Use Custom History Settings" needs to be selected, then uncheck the "Accept third-party cookies" checkbox.

[PatM]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

It seems I too am not interesting.  
I'm on Firefox with noscript and add block plus.

[CLAY]

Carl

Edit: Found it. On the Mac, the "Use Custom History Settings" needs to be selected, then uncheck the "Accept third-party cookies" checkbox.

Just changed it on Chrome.  

[Giaka]

I was a 35-44 year old male.  

You were? What happened?

[UFO]

Some folks should run crap cleaner and malwarebytes every once in a while.  Google has no clue about me

LOL!  Uh-huh.

[cultureslayer]

You were? What happened?

Blocked 3rd party cookies.  

[cbsnbiker]

Age: 55-64
Gender: Male

Damn.   And I haven't even received an AARP membership offer yet.  

[Fat Boy]

FatBoy uses ad blocker and doesnt eat ad cookies, the nice thing is it is only adds and you dont have to keep logging in to registered sites.


"Ads Preferences
Cookies are disabled
Your browser's cookies seem to be disabled. Ads Preferences will not work until you enable cookies in your browser. How do I enable cookies?"

[maddjack]

Some folks should run crap cleaner and malwarebytes every once in a while.  Google has no clue about me

Same here  

[stew71]

  AdBlocker Plus on Firefox and delete everything upon exit.

  Me too.

[Snowbird]

No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.

Me too.  

I'm sure there's lots of info on the web about me, but I don't make it easy.

[cbsnbiker]

Some folks should run crap cleaner and malwarebytes every once in a while.  Google has no clue about me

Is there a Mac equivalent? Is it needed?

[dm_gsxr]

Is there a Mac equivalent? Is it needed?

Let's see. Firefox on Mac, Linux and Windows and no id for two. I'd say nope, not needed. Just set your browser correctly. For additional protection against drive by malware installs from rogue advertisers, use ad blocker plus. Even more (but you have do interact with web sites' scripting), install noscript. You do have to do some investigation for noscript as well. Don't turn everything on or off. It does tell you just how many ad and tracking sites there are. Both for Firefox.

Ccleaner is used to clean your Windows registry of old, uninstalled programs that left stuff behind because it didn't know if some other program was using it so didn't want to affect it. Of course you can go ahead and do some cleaning but if you don't know what you're doing, you can prevent your Windows system from coming up.

Malwarebytes is a malware scanner and also checks cookies for third party or other malicious info. Unfortunately, it won't identify the google cookie as bad. Good to run but doesn't address this.

Turn off third party cookies in firefox. That's all I do.

Oh, you can clean your browsing history if you're afraid of some site enumerating it for all the sites you've visited. And you can clear your cookies in firefox as well. Of course, you'll have to log in every time you go to a site but that's the price you pay for eternal vigalence.

Carl

[Fat Boy]

is Spybot still being used by people?

[antvq]

is Spybot still being used by people?

Hell yes! And still working great.

[JSharp]

"You currently do not have an ‘id’ cookie.  Opt in to customize your ad preferences and tell Google which interest-based ads you'd prefer to see."  

I delete cookies religiously.  Why would I ever want to opt in on this?

http://www.theonion.com/video/google-opt-out-feature-lets-users-protect-privacy,14358/

[Snowbird]

Seriously, what kinds of personal nightmares is one exposed to by Google knowing stuff about you? Keep in mind, this question is from someone of whom Google knows little about... at least by this thread's measure.

[SuperHans]

Cookies enabled on work computer, can't disable them.

[maddjack]

Seriously, what kinds of personal nightmares is one exposed to by Google knowing stuff about you? Keep in mind, this question is from someone of whom Google knows little about... at least by this thread's measure.

Maybe none, but , do they really NEED to know anything. I am not the type to post every aspect of my life , interests for all to see or post my whole life on face book.The less they know  the better, its all for ads, garbage anyway.

[cbsnbiker]

Seriously, what kinds of personal nightmares is one exposed to by Google knowing stuff about you? Keep in mind, this question is from someone of whom Google knows little about... at least by this thread's measure.

Personal information is a valuable commodity.

Companies are making a lot of money on our information.

They are making money off of us.

Most of the time, we don't get a cut.

[SuperHans]

[SuperHans]

Seriously, what kinds of personal nightmares is one exposed to by Google knowing stuff about you? Keep in mind, this question is from someone of whom Google knows little about... at least by this thread's measure.

http://donttrack.us/

[Kneescrubber]

I'd never heard of them. I'll try them for a while and see how it goes. Thanks!  

[Snowbird]

Agreed.

This thread just became useful.  

[Kneescrubber]

Well I used it to search Brunswick stew and got all the hits I'd expect to get on Google. But they aren't tracking me. FWIW

[sodapop6620]

Seriously, what kinds of personal nightmares is one exposed to by Google knowing stuff about you? Keep in mind, this question is from someone of whom Google knows little about... at least by this thread's measure.

1984 by George Orwell

http://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell/dp/B005F6569Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327791267&sr=8-3

[SlakeMoth]

Sweet, according to Google I'm still 18 to 24.  I can live with that

And apparently i'm into goth subculture.  Probably because i searched this video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2vPX-CWSE  


per the http://donttrack.us/ link - I've been running http://disconnect.me/ for the last few months.  I've only had a couple of conflicts with it.

[dorklord]

On my linux machine, Google thinks I'm a 25-34 year old male with an interest in (get this) Linux.

On the windows laptop, Google thinks I'm a 25-34 year old female with an interest in dogs and men's clothing...

I wonder what criteria they use to determine gender?

[cultureslayer]

On my linux machine, Google thinks I'm a 25-34 year old male with an interest in (get this) Linux.

On the windows laptop, Google thinks I'm a 25-34 year old female with an interest in dogs and men's clothing...

I wonder what criteria they use to determine gender?

No idea, since I was a male interested in kitchens and dining (have been looking for a deal on some dinnerware).  

At least it's better than stupid facebook giving me a bunch of engagement ring ads, presumably because they know I'm female and in a relationship (still in the closet on the married thing).  

[sodapop6620]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2vPX-CWSE  

I have a company meeting next week.  Guess what I am going to spread around to make the meetings more enjoyable.  Maybe the ceo will break out with a dance.

[dorklord]

No idea, since I was a male interested in kitchens and dining (have been looking for a deal on some dinnerware).  

At least it's better than stupid facebook giving me a bunch of engagement ring ads, presumably because they know I'm female and in a relationship (still in the closet on the married thing).  

I wonder what's with the men's clothing thing...I've not bought or looked at clothes online, men's or otherwise.

Perhaps google figures that if you clear your search history once a week or so, it means you are a male  

[Snowbird]

1984 by George Orwell

http://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell/dp/B005F6569Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327791267&sr=8-3

I recall New years Day, 1984 when George Plimpton hosted a TV show about, well, the arrival of 1984. In the show, he concluded that Orwell's fantasies amounted to nothing more than paranoia. We should all just relax. It turns out Orwell was just a bit early with his prediction... and I'm not thinking in the main about Google. I'm thinking more about government; from red light cameras, police cruisers that can read and react to plates, detentions without trial, new efforts to read minds remotely, the Patriot Act and other anti-terror laws, etc.

[Papa Lazarou]

anybody using this?

http://www.ghostery.com/