Friday 11 March 2011

Pursued by shoes

On a lighter note than usual, my computer appear to have at some point over the last couple of days picked up what one might call a shoe cookie.

As I have been at home a lot in the last few weeks I have been doing a bit more online shopping than usual and recently decided I would treat myself to some new shoes. Hence I visited some websites earlier this week and spent a pleasant half hour or so looking through the multiplicity of styles on offer.

Despite my firewall, this would appear to have alerted some marketing people's technology to the fact that someone using this computer has an interest in shoes, and as a result I have started to find shoe advertisements lurking at the side of half the websites I visit (below are a random sample from news sites I have visited today alone)

Remarkably, not only has the technology noted that I have been contemplating buying shoes, but it has identified the very style of high heeled court shoe I was planning to buy. I imagine that, had I been planning to buy gardening tools pictures of spades and rakes would mysteriously appear on my screen.

Technology has got to the point where it is actually quite terrifying!!

8 comments:

alanorei said...

On a lighter comment note, Sarah, I'm sure you'll look excellent in whichever pair you decide to buy, if you decide to buy.

The article about BHO and his birth certificate and the shoe pics have put me in mind of what I should get Gill for her birthday - thanks!

Dr.D said...

Thank your friendly gmail account for all of this help. They track your every thought! They know whether you have been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake (to paraphrase an old Christmass song). It is profoundly scary.

Curt said...

Its spyware, Sarah. You can get rid of it with any of a number of programs such as "spybot search and destroy" (simply; "spybot").My Norton antivirus does the same thing, however. Just have to run it every so often to get rid of the stuff they drop onto your PC when you surf.

David said...

I'm going to get Obama a Birth Certificate for HIS birthday..

Sarah Maid of Albion said...

I have a firewall and anti-virus software, I use Bullguard, which was recommended to me, as Norton used to slow my system down.

It often spots and destroys what it calls Malware, and in addition I run it every week (I ran it yesterday and it didn't pick anything up)

So I guess it is identifying the Shoe cookie as a benign cookie such as the ones which remember you when you visit particular sites regularly.

Anonymous said...

So this answers my puzzle ... I bought a teapot at enjoyingtea.com and was puzzled to find every website I go to is now adverstising it this site. Crazy.

alanorei said...

Windows 7 seems fine for blocking pop-ups etc. via its own inbuilt firewall.

However, I'll have to see what happens when I check sites for court shoes for Gill's birthday. (You have proved to be an inspiration, Sarah, not for the first time.)

Dr D's insightful comment should be heeded though.

Always remember, therefore:

"Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that everybody isn't out to get you!" - Murphy

Anonymous said...

You women and your shoes idk :D