I'm being stalked by Wiggle !!!

AndyManc

I've noticed that over recent weeks that every (well , lots) website I go on I'm seeing banner adverts from Wiggle ..... and they are advertising items that I have recently viewed on Wiggle.

I'd had enough :? , so upon further investigation ( I clicked on the question mark at the bottom of the banner ) , I found that it's a direct advertising company called CRITEO .

They planted a tracking cookie on my comp ... anyhoo , Wiggle must be one of their customers (or maybe not ? ).

I've opted out , so I shouldn't be targeted by the insidious marketing techniques. :evil:

Naughty Wiggle :evil:


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itboffin

AndyManc wrote:

I've noticed that over recent weeks that every (well , lots) website I go on I'm seeing banner adverts from Wiggle ..... and they are advertising items that I have recently viewed on Wiggle.

I'd had enough :? , so upon further investigation ( I clicked on the question mark at the bottom of the banner ) , I found that it's a direct advertising company called CRITEO .

They planted a tracking cookie on my comp ... anyhoo , Wiggle must be one of their customers (or maybe not ? ).

I've opted out , so I shouldn't be targeted by the insidious marketing techniques. :evil:

Naughty Wiggle :evil:


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Crude behavioural advertising far more sophisticated methods exist and have done for a long time

always_tyred

itboffin wrote:

AndyManc wrote:

I've noticed that over recent weeks that every (well , lots) website I go on I'm seeing banner adverts from Wiggle ..... and they are advertising items that I have recently viewed on Wiggle.

I'd had enough :? , so upon further investigation ( I clicked on the question mark at the bottom of the banner ) , I found that it's a direct advertising company called CRITEO .

They planted a tracking cookie on my comp ... anyhoo , Wiggle must be one of their customers (or maybe not ? ).

I've opted out , so I shouldn't be targeted by the insidious marketing techniques. :evil:

Naughty Wiggle :evil:


.

Crude behavioural advertising far more sophisticated methods exist and have done for a long time

There's mind control drugs put into the water supply by Coka Cola, for example. And that image of Gordon Brown trying to smile that is beamed into my brain at night by the Ministry of Sympathy.

always_tyred

Or is it CocaCola? Its a long time since I saw anything other than "Coke".

gregmorris234

I get that, whatever i look at online thats what the adverts show.

AllTheGear

I'd like to know how this isn't a privacy breach. The ad agency (and ultimately Wiggle) surely will be able to tell what other websites and webpages I've been to. How long will it be before Wiggle are showing you ads for stuff you haven't browsed, but might be interested in because you were looking at websites concerned with hemorrhoids/sexual orientation/dating etc...?

oscarbudgie

At least Wiggle aren't being careless with your credit card details - their usual trick

AndyManc

AllTheGear wrote:

I'd like to know how this isn't a privacy breach. The ad agency (and ultimately Wiggle) surely will be able to tell what other websites and webpages I've been to. How long will it be before Wiggle are showing you ads for stuff you haven't browsed, but might be interested in because you were looking at websites concerned with hemorrhoids/sexual orientation/dating etc...?

Yep .. it's not on.

I've opted out , but they've still installed an 'opt out' cookie on my comp :evil:


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amnezia

AllTheGear wrote:

I'd like to know how this isn't a privacy breach. The ad agency (and ultimately Wiggle) surely will be able to tell what other websites and webpages I've been to. How long will it be before Wiggle are showing you ads for stuff you haven't browsed, but might be interested in because you were looking at websites concerned with hemorrhoids/sexual orientation/dating etc...?

companies have been doing this since the internet began. I would be far more worried about the amount of information that Google or Microsoft are able to track.

flicksta

It's a fuss over nothing.

What's the problem with it? Would you rather get ads entirely unrelated to anything you are interested in? They know nothing about you as an individual, the tracking cookie will not be linked to your transactions with wiggle, only the fact that you visited the site. Thousands of sites are doing this everyday. It's no different to getting a pizza leaflet through your door at home, only at least they'd know you liked pizza.

AllTheGear

We have no idea what is being done, that's the problem. They could link all the data up if they so wished.

If you walked into a newsagent and browsed a magazine (but didn't buy) and the publisher of that magazine and it's advertisers all immediately knew your name, address, phone number....

- Data protection and privacy laws are broken all the time, this is little protection.
- Databases are hacked all the time.

etc...

MonkeyMonster

adblock plus ftw - Its glorious to hide all adverts and unwanted webpage crap. Plus - you may well find that part of the huge agreement with wiggle (that you ticked - accept) when you first bought asked whether they could add that cookie. Its not unknown for random "nastiness" to be hidden within EULA's that people just go, can't be arsed reading so I'll click yes.

flicksta

AllTheGear wrote:

We have no idea what is being done, that's the problem. They could link all the data up if they so wished.

If you walked into a newsagent and browsed a magazine (but didn't buy) and the publisher of that magazine and it's advertisers all immediately knew your name, address, phone number....

- Data protection and privacy laws are broken all the time, this is little protection.
- Databases are hacked all the time.

etc...

How do they link up the data? Match your IP address to your basket and account? Do you only have one pc? Do you only ever use one pc to access Wiggle? Do you have a static IP address, which unless you requested it from your ISP you won't. Do you ever use a corporate PC to access Wiggle, which will regularly clear your cookies and also have a dynamic IP address?

They aren't doing this and they won't, it's a horrendously complicated undertaking.

They won't be sharing this data with advertisers, they haven't got any and it would be illegal

It's all very well saying that the law is broken, but you've got to be realistic. Don't worry about things that aren't a risk. You are far more at risk from using a credit card in a restaurant.

d21dga

Could be worse, could be like Amazon. It seems that they adjust the prices of items depending upon who's looking at it and their previous browsing/buying habits :twisted:

HamishD

MonkeyMonster wrote:

adblock plus ftw .

+1

And NoScript while you're at it . . .

DonDaddyD

I was on the Sky Sports webpage and saw the items I had previously viewed on Wiggle beign advertised there. I then went onto a comicbook website and saw the same stuff there as well.

From a advertising/marketing point of view its genius, and from a professional standpoint I like it.

From a personal perspective, which to me is the most important thing, it was kinda creepy and felt compelled to close that other website that I go to, which only people old enough to have credit cards are allowed to go on....

PBo

DonDaddyD wrote:

From a personal perspective, which to me is the most important thing, it was kinda creepy and felt compelled to close that other website that I go to, which only people old enough to have credit cards are allowed to go on....

Ladbrokes/William Hill/Blue square? Oddbins/Threshers?

Kieran_Burns

Or you could just run CCleaner and wipe all that crud off your p.c.

AndyManc

The adverts also started appearing in You-Tube, if I clicked on the latest user videos (whose ever channel it was), the video's would disappear and Wiggle advertising would appear.

This has seriously made me think about boycotting Wiggle, it's a form of junk mail except in this case I can't run out of my front door and threaten to break their legs if they ever put that s*it through my letterbox again . :evil:


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always_tyred

You could just clear you cache more often.

AndyManc

Always Tyred wrote:

You could just clear you cache more often.

If you clear your cookies the 'opt out' cookie is removed and the advertising cookie put back in.

I should imagine this is done when you log on into your Wiggle account or access a Wiggle page.


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always_tyred

AndyManc wrote:

Always Tyred wrote:

You could just clear you cache more often.

If you clear your cookies the 'opt out' cookie is removed and the advertising cookie put back in.

I should imagine this is done when you log on into your Wiggle account or access a Wiggle page.


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So clear your cache again!!
I private browse - the cache and history gets deleted every time I shit Firefox down. As such, I get regailed with advertising for stuff I'm not the least interested in, rather than stuff similar to things I've recently bought. :?

jonmack

What the hell are Ads? Been a long time since I've sen any of those!

fossyant

MonkeyMonster wrote:

adblock plus ftw - Its glorious to hide all adverts and unwanted webpage crap.

+1 here for Firefox.....

Makes a huge difference in page loads as it's not waiting for 'other' servers.....

I don't want the adverts - these animated ones hog bandwidth

itboffin

Cookies are nothing do a search for "Network behavioural targeting" :roll:

flicksta

If you are really bothered by stuff like this.............stop using the internet, it's happening to you all day, every day.

Pretty much every site you look at that is supported by advertising will be part of an advertising network or two, or three, or four. Cookies all over your machine, you visit here, you may well be part of a 'cycling enthusiast' segment. Go to another site and see cycle-related ads. Both websites get a share of the revenue. It's old stuff.

That said, the wiggle stuff is very pervasive, and by the sounds of some of the comments here, they are overdoing it.

Nothing sinister though. Google do far, far worse.

matchbook

From another forum:

'Kin liberty I say, how very dare they show what I've browsed as advertising banners on other sites - no privacy these days.

Reply from Wiggle:

"Thank you for your email. I am sorry that you have found the Criteo banners intrusive. In this email, I would like to take the opportunity to explain why we use these banners, but also to tell you how you can opt-out of seeing them in future. If you are still unhappy and have further questions, then please feel free to send an email to me. Your views are important to us.

Criteo banners display banners that are personal and specific to each and every Wiggle user. Each day thousands of people view Wiggle Criteo banners both on websites in the UK and overseas. Thousands of people click on them and buy from us. In fact the % of people who actively click on them and buy from us is significantly higher than from standard banners. The reason for this is that standard banners are not personalised and show only one kind of message to everyone, whereas Criteo banners generally show products that people are interested in. This kind of behaviour retargeting advertising is likely to become more widespread on the net, for all advertisers, in the future because, on the whole, it statistically provides a better user experience.

The Criteo system filters out products that users have bought from Wiggle; the algorithm also stops retargeting people who do not click on the banners after a period of time.[...]

It is a little unsettling how easily we can be tracked across the web in such a way, indirectly by companies we have been customers of, especially given the potential next step, trialled in secret by BT on their paying customers a year or so ago (AKA the Phorm debacle), which involved diverting all internet traffic through special proxy servers, which then add "targeted advertising" based on the content of said internet traffic. As a result of these secret trials, the European Commission is currently in the process of taking legal action against the UK Government due to its failure to "ensure that British citizens fully benefit from the safeguards set out in EU law concerning confidentiality of electronic communications".

Despite all this, I can't really blame Wiggle for using 3rd party tracking cookie providers, their response/justification is reasonable enough, and they are far from the only company to do so.
Aside from Noscript/Adblock there are also firefox plugins available which maintain opt-out web cookies for various advertising networks.
Haven't noticed any Wiggle adverts so far at all on Youtube etc myself. Not using firefox+adblock or anything, but still I also don't notice very many ads at all while browsing.
Might be something to do with the contents of my hosts file though. A snippet:

127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 whitepapers.theregister.co.uk
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 servedby2.advertising.com
127.0.0.1 ad.uk.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 bannerfarm.ace.advertising.com
127.0.0.1 m1.emea.2mdn.net
127.0.0.1 ace.advertising.com
127.0.0.1 tbgadserver.com
127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com
127.0.0.1 mediaplex.com
127.0.0.1 cdn5.tribalfusion.com
127.0.0.1 tribalfusion.com
127.0.0.1 a.tribalfusion.com
127 0 0 1 pixel.quantserve.com

always_tyred

itboffin wrote:

Cookies are nothing do a search for "Network behavioural targeting" :roll:

You do the god damn search. I don't want to be sent adverts for heuristic algorithm software and neiral network computing simply becuase some clever d!ck told me to do a search for targeted behavioural toejamming.

itboffin

Always Tyred wrote:

itboffin wrote:

Cookies are nothing do a search for "Network behavioural targeting" :roll:

You do the god damn search. I don't want to be sent adverts for heuristic algorithm software and neiral network computing simply becuase some clever d!ck told me to do a search for targeted behavioural toejamming.

@matchbook :shock:

chuckcork

AndyManc wrote:

This has seriously made me think about boycotting Wiggle, it's a form of junk mail except in this case I can't run out of my front door and threaten to break their legs if they ever put that s*it through my letterbox again . :evil:
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I'd suggest doing so regardless, everytime I've done a web-shop price comparison and bothered to include them in it they've been way more expensive than anywhere else.

I guess thats how the CTC can have them as their source and they still make money....

CdrJake

I perfer to think that Wiggle is not stalking me, but that I am stalking Wiggle.