Why am i getting random twitter notifications?

[Brian]

So for the past like 3 weeks or so every few days i get random notifications i would never get before like for instance the notification will say "@JoeBin was followed by @CarryMartin" or "@JoeBin retweeted @CarryMartin" i used to never get these now all of a sudden i randomly get them, is there a way i can stop it or at least an explanation on why i get these and if other people that follow me get these?

[OTTAWA FAN]

These are people who are connected to people you follow. It's pretty much an advertisement to get you to visit your Twitter page again. Twitter has to compete with other social networking sites.