A question about google and another search engine

[goclark]

A friend told me that they heard that our mutural friend died in New York.

I did a search for the friends name and up came his Obiturary from the New York Times.


About two months later I received an email from an OBITUARY COMPANY listing my friend - his name was odd but they had 2 others with the same name and I knew my friend because it said NY" - They were telling me how I could pay to have all kinds of things for $$$$ like...

A sign in sheet to leave a message that would be sent to his family.

A photo of him etc., etc.

1. I have not seen the friend for over 25 years!

2. He did not have my email address

Did they know how to get my name/email address when I did the search?

I searched and searched again for the NY Times Obituary on the web and it had disappeared!

Today I searched for his name and there was another Obituary from his home state -- it was not there the first time.

How in hell did that company get my name?

[ChromeFoundry]

1. Google Analytics

that would be my first guess. I change my HOSTS file to redirect all Google Analytics JavaScript loads to redirect to 127.0.0.1. I'd rather deal with the occasional error message on page loads than to be the prey of these SPAM generators.

Add this line to your hosts. file:

127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com

[goclark]

2. thanks!

[davepdx]

3. You might find this video useful

If you are interested in finding out who is tracking you online then you might find this video useful:
http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers.html

Here's the link to the Firefox extension that the speaker in the video refers to (Collusion):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/collusion/

I use quite a few Firefox addons that may be relevant to tracking: BrowserProtect, Certificate Patrol, Ghostery, NoScript, and ShareMeNot. Just today I just became aware of a newer add-on for Firefox named Do Not Track Plus which claims that it "Stops secret tracking of your web browsing." I don't know if this duplicates the efforts of Ghostery or not or how well it works so this needs to be determined. Do Not Track Plus is also available for Chrome (PC and Mac), Safari and Internet Explorer.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/

[goclark]

4. Thanks so much for updating me

[Go Vols]

5. I particularly like this one among the few I use

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/targeted-advertising-cookie-op/

[goclark]

6. So glad I found this forum

Thanks everyone!