How Does This Happen? Ebay/Facebook

[Torper]

I have an ebay account in my own name.  My wife has an ebay account in her sole name.  My wife has a facebook account.  I don't.  We each have our own computer.  So why is it that when my wife opened her facebook page today she had a message from ebay suggesting she might like to proceed to purchase some of the items that I'd viewed yesterday using my own computer and not even having signed in to ebay?  Fortunately I hadn't been looking at anything I might not have wanted her to see, but it's really a bit alarming.

 

DT

[Horsetan]

......why is it that when my wife opened her facebook page today she had a message from ebay suggesting she might like to proceed to purchase some of the items that I'd viewed yesterday using my own computer and not even having signed in to ebay?  Fortunately I hadn't been looking at anything I might not have wanted her to see, but it's really a bit alarming.

 

Malgorithms?

[SRman]

I have an ebay account in my own name.  My wife has an ebay account in her sole name.  My wife has a facebook account.  I don't.  We each have our own computer.  So why is it that when my wife opened her facebook page today she had a message from ebay suggesting she might like to proceed to purchase some of the items that I'd viewed yesterday using my own computer and not even having signed in to ebay?  Fortunately I hadn't been looking at anything I might not have wanted her to see, but it's really a bit alarming.

 

DT

 

If you are both using computers at the same address (through the same modem), then it is easily possible they have targetted that IP - the outside world sees only the IP address of your modem, not the individual internally allocated IPs of your computers.

[MJI]

This is pretty terrible tracking, unless she used your PC.

 

Must be using IP address, need to work out where the tracking cookies are coming from and place the site in both HOSTS

[Torper]

OK, we're probably using the same IP address as both computers are connected to the same router, but I still don't understand how my viewing on ebay ends up on my wife's personal Facebook page.  As I understand it (and I probably don't) my wife has Facebook "friends" (only six in fact) and only they can post on her facebook page.  Ebay is not a friend, but up comes this posting from it at the top of which are the words, in a light grey, "suggested post".  The post contains pictures of things I've viewed recently, together with suggestions of things I might like to view (fortunately it's all concerned with model railways).

 

Martin, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "place the site in both HOSTS" and I'd be grateful if you'd explain.

 

DT

[Pete the Elaner]

Martin, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "place the site in both HOSTS" and I'd be grateful if you'd explain.

 

I know what he means & I think he is suggesting you deliberately sabotage your PC

The old method of resolving a name used a text file called 'hosts' which all PCs (& probably macs too) still have. Your PC will check this file every time it tries to find a location on the internet. If it does not find what it is looking for, it will check its DNS server to find an IP address from the name you have requested.

That sounds complicated so here goes:

 

A website asks your PC about its browsing history (cookies) & uses a site name of www.cookies.com for example. This goes on a lot & helps you browse - it could hold information about threads you have recently viewed on here.

check hosts file for www.cookies.com - it should not be listed in here.

check DNS - contact server which may know - address is given as 1.2.3.4

Contact that server & tell it about your browsing.

 

If you then added the name www.cookies.com to your hosts file with address 10.0.0.1, this will happen:

check hosts file for www.cookies.com - that server is 10.0.0.1

Attempt & fail to contact that server.

 

That is very simplified & it is more secure than it sounds..

[Al51]

I have an ebay account in my own name.  My wife has an ebay account in her sole name.  My wife has a facebook account.  I don't.  We each have our own computer.  So why is it that when my wife opened her facebook page today she had a message from ebay suggesting she might like to proceed to purchase some of the items that I'd viewed yesterday using my own computer and not even having signed in to ebay?  Fortunately I hadn't been looking at anything I might not have wanted her to see, but it's really a bit alarming.

 

DT

This happens because Ebay has placed the advert on Facebook, so the advert content comes from the Ebay site which looks at the last items viewed from you IP address.

 

Al

[Bernard Lamb]

A similar thing happened to me yesterday.

SWMBO uses an ipad and I use a desktop when we are at home and they share the modem and broadband facilities but have totally separate email, Facebook and Paypal accounts.

She asked me was I still interested in some Dapol wagons.

Bernard

[Torper]

Such research as I have done suggests that ebay used to give members the option of opting out of sharing their ebay experiences with social networking websites.  That option has since been removed.

 

DT

[Hilux5972]

And unless your wife has changed her privacy from public to private then anyone can see her posts. She can change it so that only accepted friends can see her posts, but it is automatically set to allow anyone to view anything she posts.

[teaky]

In Win10 Settings there's an option to "use random hardware addresses".  I cannot see any explanation of what they actually mean by this.  Is this of any use for this problem?

[davefromacrossthepond]

I've decided that instead of fighting what I can't, I'll leverage the time and effort ebay and facebook spend to my own advantage.  A month or so before my birthday and Christmas I make it a point to do some heavy duty searches of some power tools that I've been eyeing as well as whatever train related stuff we're likely to run into at the next show (there's a large one in Springfield Mass right after Christmas).  Works like a charm!

[Reorte]

In Win10 Settings there's an option to "use random hardware addresses".  I cannot see any explanation of what they actually mean by this.  Is this of any use for this problem?

I'd guess not. In this case both computers will have different hardware addresses (identifies the individual piece of kit) but won't do anything about the same IP address, and being connected to the same router there's no way around that that'll still work - the remote server needs to know where its traffic is going to. A partial solution is if your ISP offers dynamic IP addresses, so every time the router reconnects it gets assigned a different one, but you don't want to be turning your router on and off all the time (it'll get interpreted as a bad connection and your speed may get downgraded to cope).

[teaky]

I'd guess not. In this case both computers will have different hardware addresses (identifies the individual piece of kit) but won't do anything about the same IP address, and being connected to the same router there's no way around that that'll still work - the remote server needs to know where its traffic is going to. A partial solution is if your ISP offers dynamic IP addresses, so every time the router reconnects it gets assigned a different one, but you don't want to be turning your router on and off all the time (it'll get interpreted as a bad connection and your speed may get downgraded to cope).

Thanks Reorte.  There is no explanation of what MS mean so I just thought I'd ask in case it did turn out to be dynamic IP addressing but I guess not.  I'm at a bit of a loss to figure out the point of this Win10 feature.  Having it On or Off appears to make no difference.

[MJI]

here is a section of mine, see what I think of doubleclick!

 

# Copyright © 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
#    127.0.0.1       localhost
#    ::1             localhost

127.0.0.1    ad.doubleclick.net
 

[brigo]

Similar to the OP, myself and my daughter have separate EBay accounts, she's on Facebook, I'm not. I use Firefox, she's on Chrome. Both on Windows 7.

Earlier today I clicked on a link in the EBay Madness topic. This evening on my daughter's Facebook feed she had a photo/message from EBay saying "Inspired ? Take another look". The item being that which I had viewed.

Again yesterday I visited for the first time a site called Firebox to look at an item my daughter had suggested as a present. Within half an hour she had the item come up on her Facebook feed.

Now, earlier replies inferred that this can happen with a shared IP address, however my daughter moved from home down to London a few weeks ago, so that connection has been severed.

Thoughts anyone.

 

Brian