How does this happen? Are THEY watching what we do online ?

[NONAME]

I don't understand this.
One minute I will be answering questions on a Law & Ethics section of yahoo answers, or some other forum.

The next minute I'm getting advertisements on facebook and youtube about the Law, and "In need of a Lawyer?" video advertisements in between my Youtube videos... Which I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. First time ever. The advertisements are usually about cleaning products or something else random.

Those 3 websites are NOT linked, they are separate, and they are all 3 used with different emails.

So how do the other 2 websites know that I was answering questions on a Law & Ethics forum?
Please tell me.

Is the government watching what we do online?
And please don't be rude. I can't help I get paranoid.

[noallegiance]

no, a computer network is documenting what you do online. they only watch you, if you have accessed too many websites that could give away their game.

who cares anyhow? let "them" (the network nodes) watch, they might learn something

[Guy]

Yes the government stores everything you do online into a huge database. It is automatically stored so nobody looks at it unless they have a reason to. All the big websites are owned by the same people and they do business together. You created your facebook from the same IP address you are accessing yahoo from, all your information is stored under your IP adress, and since you have a facebook all your personal information is linked to your IP address under a huge profile of you.

It's called the National Security Agency.

Facebook was created for the purpose of collection huge amounts of Information about people. It can be used for simple things like advertising or much, much darker things...

[billy j]

It's not you being paranoid though you are wrong about it being the government. (They do watch but they don't control the adverts)

basically through the use of internet cookies and such various websites and advertisement agencies advertise products to based on what they think a person would be interested in buying. This is done by looking at the sites you visit.

[little princess]

All it takes is one little image from facebook on some page you visit and they'll know you were there. If you go to a site that has advertizing, that advertiser knows you were there. Then when you show up on another page that has ads from that same advertiser (or an affiliate of theirs), they know where you've been.

It's all linked together. Google knows what searches you've done. They know where your android phone is and where it goes. They scan your gmail. Some might even say that google knows you better than you know yourself. Other advertising entitles aren't that far behind google.

The government isn't technically watching everything you do online, but it does record it. Then if something triggers an interest in you, they can go back and scan what you've done and determine if you any sort of a threat. They also record all your phone calls and if they can later get a court approval they can go back and listen to them for anything incriminating or suspicious.

If you think you're paranoid, just think how paranoid the government is.

[Sam]

The gorvenment totally has watchdogs 24/7 checking out what people do on the internet. It's like a tool for them, for example if your on facebook or twitter, they don't need to ask you- You are literally going to tell them everything(even though unintentionally). So yeah it's cool to be paranoid, even I get pretty mad as some dick gorvenment agent from the CIA or FBI might be reading what i'm writing now. That's the sad truth.... We're all part of this insipid internet hyper-mania.

[Douglas]

I tend to agree with you, of course they are watching your every move. Don't have a cell phone or computer, just have a house phone, or no phone at all!!