Ok, this is crazy and driving me nuts. I have an Ipad, IPhone and PC. DH has a tablet and his work PC is somehow tied to our home PC. I’m illiterate when it comes to all of this.
If I search stuff on my iPad or iPhone, say a watch, then all those watch ads appear now on his work PC and vice versa. We can tell what the other is surfing. I don’t know if that extends to articles, etc. I hate it, it’s like I have no privacy. He said it’s something to do with a common computer address maybe. He thinks it can be turned off, but I do t know.
You might want to try turning off cookies. I don’t know how the things you search show up on his device (unless you guys are sharing gmail accounts across devices), but turning off cookies will stop companies from tracing your search/shopping history and it stops giving you personalized ads.
Thanks everyone! We don’t share an Apple ID or account, or iCloud. He has an android phone and Mac laptop. It’s weird his company pic reads my tablet. I’ll try turning off cookies, but then I don’t have the websites I frequent just be there anymore on my Ipad to just click on.
Did you see my post about being logged in to a same google/chrome account on multiple devices?
If I do a search on my iPhone with chrome and signed into my google everything any device I use that is also logged into my google accounts often remembers my activity
Browser cookies from safari on an iPad with one apple ID don’t auto-sync to chrome on a mac with a different apple ID. I’m pretty sure there’s no crossover at all from safari to chrome.
I suspect the crossover is the family PC. Assuming it’s a mac and the H is signed into his apple ID on it, then when OP uses it for browsing that browsing history syncs up with his work mac. OP can turn off safari syncing on all their apple devices (ipads, mac, watch, etc) via account settings if she wants to experiment.
I got a new macbook for work and nothing from my personal iPad synced up until I signed in to my apple ID on the macbook. Same with my work iPhone.
Pretty sure OP isn’t using safari (or anyone else for that matter). Also, they aren’t sharing Apple ID’s.
I suggested turning off cookies because it’s a blanket solution. It won’t stop the syncing, but it stops companies from monitoring your search history and providing suggested ads.
Advertisers are much more sophisticated than cookies and user logins. UIDH’s, tracking pixels, GAID, IDFA, ip, IMEI, device correlation, probabilistic tracking, geolocation correlation, etc.
The reality is that you will need to be relatively sophisticated to make a dent in this.
A digital advertising company explained that they harvest that sort of data through your wifi router and use it to bounce advertising back to you. So lets say you search for a watch and your neighbor searches for a telescope - your ads will be served up accordingly online.
Are you maybe confusing safari with something else? Safari is the default browser for iPad, iPhone, and Mac, all of which OP said she has in her first post.
Haven’t read all the answers, but I don’t think it’s your devices “talking to one another.” I think it’s that all those sites know who you are and who your family members are. For instance, I have a work account through my work email and a a separate password. Yet when I do internet searches on there, I get related ads on my personal account. My husband also gets them. Therefore, I assume “they” know who I am and who I’m married to and where I work.
Gotcha, but if she’s not even signing in to google/chrome, how is it linking chrome on her iPad to her husband’s mac chrome? Safari is quite popular on apple mobile devices, so it’s pretty reasonable to assume iPad and iPhone users are on it.
@conmama Are you using the default browser (safari) on your iPad, or google chrome?
I’ll just chime in here to say that I have a personal iPad that I use Safari on. I have a work mac where I use chrome strictly for work and safari for personal use.
I get zero crossover from Safari to Chrome, including ads, etc. I’d be acutely aware if that was happening as I do a lot of screen-sharing. W has her own iPad, iPhone, and Mac and we also get zero crossover to each other.
I think it’s related to what @RichInPitt said, about how it’s more than just cookies. I could be just grasping at straws here, but it makes sense to me. I think it’s probabilistic matching. Basically companies gather your preferences and settings and learn about what you like, what you don’t like and they develop a way to identify you (not as a person, they don’t know names or faces) across devices.