STOP Email and Advertizement Spam
Without a doubt email spam has become a worldwide problem. If your email is out there for someone to find you will be put on a list or several all aimed at targeting, you as a potential customer to their products.
Opting out of email subscription is one of the easiest ways to prevent follow-up spam. That only works with legitimate companies. If you purchase a new pair of shoes for company “X” they will most likely post a notice giving you a chance to be the first to receive news on new deals or models. My advice is not to give them that right.
Who Should I Block
Certainly, that depends on your personal preferences, but it is no coincidence that sites like AOL will ask EVERY time you enter the site. It is very easy to mistakenly click on OK not realizing you are giving them rights to send you email about almost anything. This is big money for all of these sites. Prevent any browser from gathering your “preferences”. Once you give them permission you will start seeing not only emails but every ad on every site your visit will be offering you products and deals on items you have searched for.
If you looked for a coffee maker, be ready to hear from every coffee maker out there.
How it Works
Once you visit a website, they will ask you to approve “all cookies” don’t allow them to place cookies on your PC. Cookies vary in invasiveness with some innocent site simply placing your log on information making it easier to sign back in and start where you left off. Other plant tracking cookies that do as the name applies, they start tracking where you go, what you by, even how much time you spend looking at an item. This becomes valuable information that turn around and see to potential advertisement companies. Think of it this way. If I sell pianos for a living and decide to send advertisements, whether by mail. Email or flashing an image or video on your webpage can cost me a fortune because 99% of the people that receive my ad will ignore it. BUT, if I were to receive a list of people that I know for sure are in the market for purchasing a piano, I could dispense with sending out 99% of my ads and target only the most likely buyers, saving me a ton of advertising costs.
Big Business
That is all it is, big, very big, business. The cookies do not have to have malicious intent, they are only gathering information and selling at a huge profit, but you receive none of those profits.
Websites.
If you happen to visit any kind of blog, it can be helpful to know when the next tech article, recipe, or new item is published, and many individuals subscribe to several blogs but not all innocents. Just make sure they are not selling your information to their-party sites or before you know it that recipe website you just subscribed to might mean you start receiving ads on blenders, pots, and pans. Read the fine print and if they state that your information will not be shared with anyone else you are good to go.