I wanted a pair of huaraches.

It’s hard nowadays to go to a store and try things before you buy them, so off I went to Google in search of these white sandals I had in mind.

Google suggested a few places for me to find the shoes. Within nanoseconds it seems, I started getting pop-up ads and emails for huaraches from an abundance of online stores.

Why? According to Adlock.com, “The personalized ads are a result of cookies and an IP address. Cookies are text files in your browser that track information you’ve searched. Your IP address is kind of like your house address and shows where you are located. The balance between both of them is what gives the information to advertisers.”

I searched for cruises about a year ago, and my email is loaded with cruise offers and deals.

This happens to me on Facebook as well.

In a recent report, Jamey Tucker, WFMZ’s tech reporter, said, “Nothing you do on Facebook is going to remove ads from the newsfeed. That’s how Facebook earns revenue.”

Tucker also quoted a recent Facebook post claiming you can regain friends in your news feed and get rid of ads by copying and pasting the post to your page or profile. The post begins by saying “Yessssss it works!!! Omg it worked!!!”

Not so, Tucker said. And not only that - it opens yourself to scammers who target those who share these posts. Scammers also do a search for the word “Yessssss.”

Regarding Google, there is an entire section on privacy and personalized ads. My system was set to allow personalized ads, which I have now changed.

It is a little complicated to change the setting.

If you open Google, go to the bottom right of the screen where you will see “Settings.” Click on that, and then click on “Your data in Search.” Then click on “Ad personalization.”

Of course, nothing is simple. It then said I had to sign into Google. I did that, but it wasn’t enough. It said it had to verify it was me, so it sent a text to my phone. After all of that, I got to the ad center, where I was able to turn off personalized ads.

The message I received - “It may take a little while for this change to take effect.”

Great.

We will see if that worked.

If you really want to learn more about how social media monitors and affects what we do, I would suggest watching the movie “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix. Just some of the interviewees include Tristan Harris, former Google design ethicist, co-founder and CEO of Apture and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology; Tim Kendall, former director of monetization at Facebook, former president of Pinterest and CEO of Moment (a mobile application that tracks screen time); Roger McNamee, early investor at Facebook; Aza Raskin, former head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology; Justin Rosenstein, former Facebook engineering product manager and former Google product manager; Shoshana Zuboff, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School; and Jeff Seibert, former head of product at Twitter.

This is a must-watch for anyone who has children on social media.

In the meantime, I never did get a pair of huaraches.

Debbie Galbraith

editor

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press