Are your movements being tracked for the purposes of marketing?

Factual Questions
1

I was at the National Pacific War Museum this weekend in Fredricksburg, Texas. I paid cash for my ticket (I am pretty sure I did anyway), so the only way I can think of that my interests were tracked was through my iPhone. I just saw an ad for the place on CNN (I was using Chrome and was logged in). I have never seen one before, and have never visited their website. Am I correct in thinking that my movements were being tracked?

Thanks,
Rob

2

It’s not so much that they are tracking your movements (they don’t access the GPS from your phone if your phone has one, for example, at least not that I’m aware of), but they do track your IP and often that will give them your location.

Ads have been targeting by location using IP for a very long time. It’s nothing new.

3

If they were tracking your movements, you’d be getting ads for toilet paper.

4

And air freshener.

5

I removed my workplace from my Facebook profile because of this kind of crap. A few months after I first indicated there that I work in a retirement home, I started getting bombarded with “Do you like older women?” ads.

6

Short answer is yes, and such tracking is increasing. The latest releases of iOS have hooks and functioning applets for such third-party tracking, and at last word, they were silent and opt-out, not opt-in or evident to most users.