If I ever had a doubt that our website advertiZers gather information about us, it has been dispelled this past week.

Usually I felt the ads I saw were simply random, and that everyone on here saw the same ads. But now I think I was wrong.

This week, in preparation for holiday shopping, I have researched some unique items. One by one, they have appeared in the top advertising banner above the web page.

A Mini Cooper accessory search brought me ads for our local Mini service centers;
A recent search for Aston Martin DB4GTs brought me ads for the AM dealership in Greenwich;
A search for Maseratis brought me a similar ad for current Maser models;
A recent search for photos of an Austin Healey 100-4 (for Ross' Christmas list) brought me two ads for classic sports car repair and and ad for a Hemmings' classic car magazine (which I already get);
Friday's search for women's watches resulted in Sunday's ad for Breitling products;
And last night's search for L.L. Bean's ski catalog resulted in an ad this morning for the *EXACT* set of skis I was researching.

(And now that my eyes are open, I realiZe that my frequent web search a few months ago regarding Second Amendment rights actions, actually resulted in a temporary flood of adverts for local gun shops, NRA membership, and gun-related surveys).

Unless someone can convince me that this is extraordinary coincidence, I am now leery that our website is gathering individual marketing information on us (well, on ME, at least) and targeting me with ads for specific products.

If I begin seeing those same (or related) ads popping up in my off-CTZC-website internet travels (such as in my email), it will indicate to me that *this* website talks to the rest of my computer. That would not make me happy.

Anyone have any input on this? Do each of these products pay our website when they advertiZe on here? How do we know if they are being honest about how often they use our site for their adverts? Finally, how could we determine how *your* advertiZing experience here differs from *my* advertiZing experience here (which would confirm that we were being individually targeted for certain items)? Should we offer an Opt-Out feature for these ads?

I would appreciate others' input on this.

Frank

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1970 240Z

This is most likely the culprit (in the attachment). That screenshot was taken on the CTZCC website via an extension I have called Ghostery which finds and shows all the trackers on a given website. From what I remember and what I just saw from my quick search, Google makes the majority of its money through Adsense, targeting and placing ads on various websites. Google tracks your interests by using a "cookie". It's a small piece of data stored by your browser, and it follows you from site to site with a number that identifies you, or at least identifies a little about you to advertisers. This way advertisers dont have to pay for advertising to people who are interested in their product and consumers dont have to see ads for things they are not interested in.

If you go to http://www.google.com/ads/preferences (mine is shown in the 2nd attatchment) you can see what information Google has stored about you as well as opt out of interest based ads (at least I can since I have a google account). Its determined my age and a huge list of things I might be interested in based on my searches and websites I visit from my search results. Deleting your cookies and/or signing out of your google account if youre signed in is a temporary fix but can also affect your preferences on other websites

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71' 240Z: HLS3040666

Great thanks for this. I have opted-out as much as it has allowed me to. Half the info they had on me was wrong, anyway. Still don't like the feeling they were 'E-spying' on me. If I want to buy something, I'll go look for it myself. It doesn't need to come looking for me.

Frank

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1970 240Z

Frank,

The banner ads will be usually focused on YOU as opposed to US. I've been doing some research on P90X, and have found that on most websites I frequent. I don't think its CTZCC, because it happens to me on my email, facebook, and other accounts. Even general Google search ads.

It's the world we live in I suppose.

FMP

Frank, you'll find that most sites that include advertising make use of this technology. I'm surprised that you have not noticed this on the other sites you frequent. I believe the Google ads banner on our site only makes use of this technology and doesn't contribute any more then other sites do to the data capturing process.

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Phil
1981 280zxt - Now in the care my son!
2014 370Z Sports Touring Roadster

Ditto everything that has been said above, Frank.

Without a doubt, the club does not collect nor share any info. The Google ads that you see on our pages, and pretty much anywhere else on the web, are targeted to you specifically based on info Google has gleaned from your visits to other websites. Nobody other than YOU (and google) knows what ads you see on our site.

Google would argue that without some info about you, they would have no way of targeting ads of interest to you, and if they couldn't target ads, web-based advertising would be far less effective and far less appealing to advertisers.

As has been pointed out, there are, however, ways to maintain your privacy. Google gives you the choice of "opting-out" as explained above, you can adjust the settings on your browser to reject "third party cookies", or you can install free software that will erase advertisers' tracking cookies, such as CCleaner (found here: http://download.cnet.com/CCleaner ).

I hope this helps clarify things!

All Hail the web guru! ^^

Thanks, y'all.

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1970 240Z

I browse using google chrome with an ad blocker installed. I don't see any ads on any site I view. Heck i don't even get those annoying commercials before videos on yahoo. I highly suggest you guys do the same.

I know you can install an ad blocker on Firefox but I am not sure about Internet Explorer.

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Adam Perry
Datsun 260Z