An Internet for Dummies question

I am exposing my tech stupidity here and realize that this may be a ridiculously obvious question to those who are more informed...so thanks for bearing with my ignorance.  With that said, in the past month, I've had two or three different experiences in which I used a cruiseline website  (Royal Caribbean and Carnival, specifically) to search potential cruises, costs, etc. and received a call from a cruiseline sales rep shortly thereafter telling me that he/she wanted to help me book the cruise for which I'd been searching online.  Then, I've found advertisements for those same cruiselines popping up in other non-related websites I've opened.  Finally, I've been receiving unsolicited contacts from sales reps for other travel and cruise related agencies which makes me wonder if those cruiselines have sold my information.

On all such occasions, I had not logged into my account with either line prior to searching their respective website. Rather, I'd merely opened the cruiseline's website through the Google browser. Okay, I realize that I've walked into their "virtual store" by opening their website, but I haven't experienced this sort of direct post-online contact before and am finding it to be a bit unnerving.  

Do others just accept that it's the common practice of all websites to collect and record the personal data of those using them (the price of using the internet) or do you do something to prevent that from occurring?


It's very common to see ads for a product all over the place after you've looked up the product. But how the heck did they get your phone number? I've never experienced anything like that, and I do plenty of online shopping. I always assume they're collecting anything useful, but for them to be so obviously stalking you by phone or email is creepy



kthnry said:

It's very common to see ads for a product all over the place after you've looked up the product. But how the heck did they get your phone number? I've never experienced anything like that, and I do plenty of online shopping. I always assume they're collecting anything useful, but for them to be so obviously stalking you by phone or email is creepy

I had sailed with both lines before and had an online account with each.  So, they had my phone and email info.  But when this happened, I was not logged in under my account. I was browsing as an unregistered guest.  My assumption is that they had tracked me when I had been logged-in at past points and had recorded my IP address.  So, when I recently was browsing, even though I wasn't logged in, they picked up my IP address, matched it to some list of IP addresses they had already captured, and determined it was me. 



Norman_Bates said:

Do others just accept that it's the common practice of all websites to collect and record the personal data of those using them (the price of using the internet) or do you do something to prevent that from occurring?

I guess you missed it. Its been said before and I'll say it again.

Yes, websites collect your information and sell it. When you use products offered by the like of Google or others websites, your are NOT the customer. You ARE the product. You are sold to anyone willing to pay.. How else can they stay in business, accumulating huge profits when they offer you "free" products such as email accounts?

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re Facebook’s customer, you’re not – you’re the product,” Schneier said. “Its customers are the advertisers.”

http://techland.time.com/2010/10/15/facebook-youre-not-the-customer-youre-the-product/ 


Clear your browser cache.

Clear your cookies.

Change your browser settings to make it so that websites you visit cannot put cookies on your machine unless you are explicitly asked.

And don't give out your name and phone number if you don't want people calling you.


Get familiar with incognito searching. 



shoshannah said:

Get familiar with incognito searching. 

To be a little more specific, if you're using the Chrome browser, click on the three little dots at the upper right corner of the window and select an "Incognito Window". If you're using Safari, go to File and select "New Private Window". Other browsers have similar features. If you're not using Chrome or Safari, run a google search for something like "how to open a private browser window in xxxx." (xxxx being your preferred browser, of course.)



sbenois said:

Clear your browser cache.

Clear your cookies.

Change your browser settings to make it so that websites you visit cannot put cookies on your machine unless you are explicitly asked.

And don't give out your name and phone number if you don't want people calling you.

Right. Even without logging in, they can see the cookie they left there last time you logged in.



Tom_Reingold said:



sbenois said:

Clear your browser cache.

Clear your cookies.

Change your browser settings to make it so that websites you visit cannot put cookies on your machine unless you are explicitly asked.

And don't give out your name and phone number if you don't want people calling you.

Right. Even without logging in, they can see the cookie they left there last time you logged in.

Tom -  Isn't it the case that browsing in incognito mode only prevents the device you are using from keeping a record of the sites you visit and also prevents cookies from being saved.  It does not prevent the website you visit from tracking your IP address...correct?   I have no worries about a family member who uses the same computer seeing where I've been browsing because that's simply not a problem...so I do not believe incognito mode will alleviate the problem I described.   I should've been more specific in my initial post. What I'm wondering is whether I need to start using a VPN or is there some other technique that might be effective in preventing a website from capturing the IP address?  


If you are in incognito mode you'll still get cookies.  So if you log into an account in an incognito browser window, they'll put a cookie on your computer which will be there until you close your browser.  Once you close your browser (not just a window or tab) it clears out any data such as cookies, saved passwords, that sort of thing.  It's like starting with a clean slate every time you open your browser.  

So you'll get tracked as long as you are in that session.  If you navigate to Best Buy and look at a TV, you might start seeing banner ads for TVs for the rest of your session even if you move over to Travelocity or Maplewood Online or whymyscreennameisapsychokiller.com.

To wipe your tracks, close the browser and reopen it.  It's not a perfect solution but it's better than nothing, and it's easier than manually clearing your cache and history every time. 


Incognito mode wont obscure your IP address, but tracking by IP address isn't too likely to be done. You can't pinpoint a specific computer when it's behind a device doing NAT*, network address translation, which allows multiple devices to access the Internet from a single IP and is how all sensibly set up homes, businesses, hotels, hotspots, etc work.

They also wouldn't be able to consistently track people that moved from location to location with a mobile device. On top of that, the IP address your ISP has assigned to you can change.

An IP address is useful for people like law enforcement to track you down if you're doing something bad. With cooperation from your ISP they can easily work out what residence is currently assigned that IP. But to pick out what specific computer is doing something they'd have to break down your door or hack your router.

As far as using a VPN, that won't do anything to obscure browser cookies. It will shift your detected location to wherever the outgoing point on the VPN tunnel is. People do talk about them to stop your ISP from tracking you, but it wouldn't stop your VPN provider from tracking you. At this point in time ISPs are generally more reputably run companies than VPN providers. Most VPN providers are in some form of what is essentially a piracy pipeline - either obscuring content providers from being able to track torrent downloaders to an ISP or people location shifting to watch content they aren't licensed to be able to see from their current location so while ISPs aren't necessarily trustworthy there's no reason to assume that a VPN provider is anything but less trustworthy.

As far as what I'd recommend for browsing sites that sell things where you want to avoid being tracked I'd just stick to incognito mode for now.


(*Overly technical additional information: Some people would say that being behind a 'router' or a 'firewall' is what causes you to have multiple IP addresses show up as one, but routers and firewalls don't have to be set up with NAT. In the real home or small business world they almost always are, but as I deal with this stuff professionally I can't help but be uptight!)

Norman_Bates said:

Tom -  Isn't it the case that browsing in incognito mode only prevents the device you are using from keeping a record of the sites you visit and also prevents cookies from being saved.  It does not prevent the website you visit from tracking your IP address...correct?   I have no worries about a family member who uses the same computer seeing where I've been browsing because that's simply not a problem...so I do not believe incognito mode will alleviate the problem I described.   I should've been more specific in my initial post. What I'm wondering is whether I need to start using a VPN or is there some other technique that might be effective in preventing a website from capturing the IP address?  




qrysdonnell said:

Incognito mode wont obscure your IP address, but tracking by IP address isn't too likely to be done. You can't pinpoint a specific computer when it's behind a device doing NAT*, network address translation, which allows multiple devices to access the Internet from a single IP and is how all sensibly set up homes, businesses, hotels, hotspots, etc work.

They also wouldn't be able to consistently track people that moved from location to location with a mobile device. On top of that, the IP address your ISP has assigned to you can change.

An IP address is useful for people like law enforcement to track you down if you're doing something bad. With cooperation from your ISP they can easily work out what residence is currently assigned that IP. But to pick out what specific computer is doing something they'd have to break down your door or hack your router.

As far as using a VPN, that won't do anything to obscure browser cookies. It will shift your detected location to wherever the outgoing point on the VPN tunnel is. People do talk about them to stop your ISP from tracking you, but it wouldn't stop your VPN provider from tracking you. At this point in time ISPs are generally more reputably run companies than VPN providers. Most VPN providers are in some form of what is essentially a piracy pipeline - either obscuring content providers from being able to track torrent downloaders to an ISP or people location shifting to watch content they aren't licensed to be able to see from their current location so while ISPs aren't necessarily trustworthy there's no reason to assume that a VPN provider is anything but less trustworthy.

As far as what I'd recommend for browsing sites that sell things where you want to avoid being tracked I'd just stick to incognito mode for now.

(*Overly technical additional information: Some people would say that being behind a 'router' or a 'firewall' is what causes you to have multiple IP addresses show up as one, but routers and firewalls don't have to be set up with NAT. In the real home or small business world they almost always are, but as I deal with this stuff professionally I can't help but be uptight!)

This is really helpful information.   It's really only a couple of websites that seem to be a pain in the neck. And, both companies know me because I've had accounts with them.  I just found it a bit surprising to get a sales call after I'd been looking up cruises without actually logging into my account but I suppose I am making more out of this than is deserved.  I really appreciate what you've written.  Thank you.


just wondering how you came to this conclusion.

And what's your definition of "trustworthy"?


qrysdonnell said:


 At this point in time ISPs are generally more reputably run companies than VPN providers. Most VPN providers are in some form of what is essentially a piracy pipeline - either obscuring content providers from being able to track torrent downloaders to an ISP or people location shifting to watch content they aren't licensed to be able to see from their current location so while ISPs aren't necessarily trustworthy there's no reason to assume that a VPN provider is anything but less trustworthy.



In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.