Facebook and tracking

[Anonymous]

Just recently I used Duck Duck Go to look up a certain brand name watch (Because they say, unlike Google, they "Do Not Track You"), then within hours I see an advertisement for that very watch brand on my Facebook feed.

A little later I also looked up a flight on certain airline from San Francisco to _____, and lo and behold within hours an ad appears on my Facebook feed for a flight by that very airline on that very route.

So can someone more computer/internet savvy than I explain how this happens? And are there any search engines I can use that won't spy on me?

[Anonymous]

Nope

[Anonymous]

Presumably, you clicked on a link from the search results. While that webpage does not know who you are or that you got there from DDG (because DDG doesn't tell them that) they do know which page you are looking at since it is their page. They store that in a cookie on your computer and now the game is up since they have an agreement with Facebook, that allows Facebook to read that cookie. Now Facebook knows what you were looking at and can pair that with your name and sell that information to anyone. It is not DDG's fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Presumably, you clicked on a link from the search results. While that webpage does not know who you are or that you got there from DDG (because DDG doesn't tell them that) they do know which page you are looking at since it is their page. They store that in a cookie on your computer and now the game is up since they have an agreement with Facebook, that allows Facebook to read that cookie. Now Facebook knows what you were looking at and can pair that with your name and sell that information to anyone. It is not DDG's fault.

^ o.k., thanks. You educated me.

[Anonymous]

I should have added that if you use incognito mode, then your cookies get deleted when you close the session/browser and then Facebook cannot link to you.