# Being served Internet ads in Spanish **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 10, 2015, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171 "2015-11-10T05:11:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/1 "2015-11-10T05:11:36Z")
I occasionally get served ads in Spanish numerous places on the internet, very often on the homepage of the Dope. I live in Michigan, not Florida/Arizona. I’m studying Japanese a bit on my own, but haven’t studied Spanish at all and haven’t made any visits to any websites in Spanish, although I have to websites in Japanese. Are advertisers lumping me in with people who are to be served “non-English” ads, and thus get Spanish ads, or does this happen to everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/2 "2015-11-10T08:12:17Z")
Right now I’m in France and in the last couple of days I’ve gotten ads both in Italian and in German. Most of the “location-named” stuff I’m getting for the Dope is for the UK. I suspect there are a lot more Hispanics in your location than you think, but also, some of those ads will not be targetting by location at a more granular level than “the US”. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/3 "2015-11-10T08:19:58Z")
Once I was getting Japanese-language ads for some tourist trap places in Vietnam. I think sometimes the ad provider trackers bug out or you do something that trips up their perception of your demographic. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/4 "2015-11-10T09:52:36Z")
I get a fair amount of Spanish-language email spam: [thread about it](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=766032) ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/5 "2015-11-10T10:09:21Z")
I’m in Michigan, on Comcast, and I occasionally get ads in Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Sahirrnee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sahirrnee/32/13937_2.png) [@Sahirrnee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sahirrnee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/6 "2015-11-10T16:12:05Z")
I’ve started getting junk mail in Spanish. Not a Spanish/English mix - pure Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/7 "2015-11-10T18:08:37Z")
I frequently get Chinese. Was getting French for a bit, but now it’s all in hanzi. Except the ads for mail order brides from China. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/8 "2015-11-10T19:53:56Z")
On Facebook lately I’m getting ads in freaking _Albanian._ No, I don’t speak Albanian, nor am I ethnically Albanian. ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/9 "2015-11-11T19:47:43Z")
I sometimes get robocalls in Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Magicicada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@Magicicada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magicicada)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/being-served-internet-ads-in-spanish/737171/10 "2015-11-13T06:42:50Z")
I get them on occasion, too. I don’t ever go to Spanish language sites, but I always figured I’d followed some link (probably through Fark, because that would be the main place I would follow links from, and they do have international stuff) that triggered it. Somehow this reminds me of when I lived for a few years in Chicago, in an area that was mostly English speaking but had a fair number of Spanish and Polish speakers. Every so often someone at the bus stop would look me over, decide I was a likely candidate, and ask me a question in either Spanish or Polish. The odd thing was, it would generally turn out that they could speak English, at least well enough to be able to repeat the question in English when I told them I didn’t speak Spanish/Polish. Apparently either I managed to look Spanish to some people and Polish to others or there was just some sort of secret password code thing that I just wasn’t getting.