Bryson Posted March 12, 2003 Share Posted March 12, 2003 Just logged on to Amazon.co.uk, and in the "recommendations" section which is personalised to each user, there was a book recommended: "Light Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage Lighting" So what? you say. Well, as far as I am aware, I've never told Amazon what I do for a living...I've definately never bought anyother lighting or even theatre books from them...so how did they know? Did they somehow extrapolate from my liking for humerous travel writing by obscure hungarian authors, and my pechant for sci-fi films? Did they follow me home? Did they (and this is the worrying part) somehow find out and use the websites I linked to and from... Could someone more internet-savvy than me explain? I keep looking behind me.... :D (PS: This will be my 200th post...lets see if my title changes...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted March 12, 2003 Share Posted March 12, 2003 God knows about Amazon but I like what your title has changed to :D Stu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeJay Posted March 13, 2003 Share Posted March 13, 2003 Don't know for certain but they could be using some form of tracking software on your PC. Try downloading CookieWall from www.analogx.com and Ad-aware from www.lavasoft.com Follow the prompts from both and be prepared to be very worried at the amount of programs and cookie tracking out there. :D Hope this is off some use BTW Amazon do keep very long records of items you have looked at, esp. if you don't visit there often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lightnix Posted March 13, 2003 Share Posted March 13, 2003 It's quite possible you have picked up a piece of spy-ware somewhere. I use Pest Patrol (acquired with Zone Alarm) to get rid of such unsolicited and unwanted filth from my computer. Often this stuff is packaged with other "innocent" programs such as Kazaa - that's why I use Kazaa Lite, which has had all the spyware hacked out of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted March 13, 2003 Author Share Posted March 13, 2003 Shouldn't be...I run Ad-aware, Norton Internet Security and have Kazaalite. Still, odd... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ace Posted March 13, 2003 Share Posted March 13, 2003 Don't forget amazon keeps a record of everything that you look at.. You don;t have to have bought an item related to technical theatre, but simply had a search for similar books.. Have you done this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Shepperd Posted March 13, 2003 Share Posted March 13, 2003 I use a very simple program that looks at the web logs on my website server. Its very quick to find where traffic comes from (i.e. the last site visited) and where traffic goes to. Remembering that Amazon has stored a cookie on your computer already, it can very easily tell the last site that you've come from before visiting Amazon. I would imagine that it takes that information and then relates it to possible products you might be interested in.Remember that Amazon is also storing products that you have looked at in the past (browsed). Although you haven't bought these products, it might also try and work out from this browsed list what else you'd like. I don't think that you are infected with any spyware from Amazon, but more likely they have built up a far bigger history of where you've been previously. I found this site which kind of indicates thats what they are doing; PC Magazine - Amazon Cookies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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