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[M3d10n]

This happened twice in the span of a month and is creeping me out.

Two websites I visited, but never filled a form, signed up for or anything like that, sent me unsolicited e-mails shortly after my visit, which boiled down to "hey, why not buy this product you were checking out during your visit?". They're not shady websites either (TecToy is one of them, which I visited when they announced their new Mega Drive).

Some site/service that does have my email obviously is sharing it with sites I visit via tracking cookies, but who? My prime suspects are Google and Facebook, but I'm not sure how to confirm this.

Anyone else suffering from such gross privacy breach? Seems I'll have to start using the browsers' private modes for more than porn going forward.

 

[Sophia]

Have you checked for malware?

 

[M3d10n]

Have you checked for malware?

I'm clean. Also, I don't think these two sites would be buying services from actual malware (the emails they sent were very specific follow ups of my visits).

One of the sites was also visited just once and only from a Windows Phone.

 

[Vermillion]

There are marketing services that allow you to do that.

Do you have a business email? Have you ever filled out a form on an affiliated site? Etc.

 

[M3d10n]

There are marketing services that allow you to do that.

Do you have a business email? Have you ever filled out a form on an affiliated site? Etc.

It was sent to my Gmail address. What do you mean by affiliated site?

 

[TheCochese]

I'm clean. Also, I don't think these two sites would be buying services from actual malware (the emails they sent were very specific follow ups of my visits).

One of the sites was also visited just once and only from a Windows Phone.

Is your Windows account this same Gmail account you are getting mail on?

 

[Will F]

I used to work in online advertising but got out partly because I didn't feel comfortable with the direction the industry is going. Data brokers are a multi-billion dollar industry, many of these companies are traded on the major stock exchanges.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/data-brokers-selling-personal-information-60-minutes/


In the case of TecToy I just looked at their page and they are loading javascript from these domains on a page load:
www.googleadservices.com
connect.facebook.net
www.google-analytics.com
trustlogo.com
www.googletagmanager.com
app.shoptarget.com.br
bat.bing.com
www.facebook.com
static.sback.tech
poscompra.shopconvert.com.br
js-agent.newrelic.com
bam.nr-data.net

These companies then sell the fact that you visited TecToy and what you looked at, who in turn package it up and sell it to other companies.
I'd be surprised if they got your email address from Google or Facebook, if I had to guess it's one of the ones like poscompra.shopconvert.com.br who bought your email address from another company you have created an account for, and then they sold it to TecToy.

Oh, and if you visited a site running ads from a real time bidding exchange that information was sent out to hundreds (if not thousands) of companies. It's very big business, there's a reason why Twitter bought MoPub for $350 million a few years ago.

Though to be fair, the vast majority of these companies don't really care who you are or want to know anything about you except for what pertains to increasing revenue by either increasing click through rates or in the case of TecToy selling more product.

 

[CitizenVectron]

Here's how it might work:

You visit site A and sign up for something with your email. That site also records your IP address.

Site A sells your data (email, IP, etc) to a network of sites which owns site B.

Site B detects your IP, matches it with your email in their database, and emails you.

 

[jelly]

Where you logged into Facebook/Google while surfing around?

It seems quite extreme for a company to email without asking though, usually you have to sign up to be spammed and some company sold your info on or have a common simple email address that people use to sign up for stuff to get in the door like firstnametheninitial.

 

[Joni]

Probably a Google cookie.

 

[Plaguefox]

Get you some Ghostery if this bothers you. (Or another better tracker blocker if anyone has any suggestions; I haven't been keeping up with the trends.)