IP Given instantaneously to Advertisers?

Hi just been noticing that the pop up or embeded ads (?) on ATS contain info not only relevant to thread Iam on but the advertisers are in my geographical close proximity, regardless of the time zone I choose, how is this possible?
And when Iam not even logged in the ads displayed , currently in the headrer of the ATS site are location relevant.
The only thing I can logically think is my IP address is handed over?
Iam cool with this but is it ethical?
Iam aplogetic if another reason is forthcoming but it just seems odd,are Members IP addresses really the focus?
So many posts but all that is important is the passing on of Ip s to advertisers?
How do the geographical precise ads get displayed even if I havent logged on?
Are IP addresses logged even without signing in?
I just want to deny my own ignorance on these matters.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by Dr Expired]

reply to post by Dr Expired


I don't know for certain, but it could be your browser. I use firefox and I get that a lot, off of many different websites, my conclusion is that firefox itself was tracking my location and not the websites that I visit.

But to add to your paranoia. THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!

reply to post by whatukno


Yes makes sense though I not on Firefox, so a browser directs advertisers to us against all privacy rules?
So a browser is in effect a advertisers lackey?
I have a pop up blocker, but ads are majikally embedded into ATS?
I guess money is money is money is money.
Shame how we dont get a cut of the profits eh?
The profits from advertising are generated by us the posters, we have our Ip addresses handed electronically to the parasites,but we get no cut of th e revenue sounds like capatilism to me.
A mask that hides a mask that hides avarice.

reply to post by Dr Expired


Depends, I do get revenue off of my own websites advertising (not anything of substance, but a few pennies here and there) so, there is a way to get money from advertisers.

I believe that it may be your web browser, but to let you know, add blocking software is against the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you signed up for ATS.

4b) Ad Blockers: As AboveTopSecret.com is provided as a free service, in part through the income of our advertising, you agree not to use "ad-blocking" software or similar built-in web browser options designed to obfuscate or block online advertising while using the website(s).

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Any request for a web page needs to send your IP address else they would not know where to send the reply back too.

You could relay your request by using a proxy server which is like using a P.O Box address but that will get you more trouble than it's worth if your using a free service.

FF is no better than IE and they are being paid $50m a year from Google.

Apart from IP address and cookes you will find between five and ten other bits of information being sent out for every page, image you view and it is near on impossible to realy hide yourself.

Learn to delete flash cookies and User data in Index.dat files if your using IE and use private browsing if you are using IE8 or download some blugins for FF.

This won't stop them but it will slow them down a bit

I believe that it may be your web browser, but to let you know, add blocking software is against the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you signed up for ATS.

I realy don't think ATS should push that one too much and instead should have a bit more control as to who the space is sold to and stop the space being sub-let because we have had trouble in the past with this but it now seems to be resolved.







[edit on 10-6-2010 by LieBuster]

reply to post by Dr Expired


I dont think ATS gives out our IP addresses. It has to do with cookies and flash cookies which Ads save in your computers in Temp folder and Flash folders. From there these cookies track out how you surf and share your ip address with the advertisers. Also some cookies share your ip addresses with all advertising firms. It is best to clean your computer before you shut down.

Use Ccleaner and Betterprivacy add on from Mozilla which protects you against these kind of cookies.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by YJLTG]

websites use scripts to ID your IP address and its' registered location the web browser then displays localized advertisements.

I'm not an expert but, I believe IP addresses are required for 2 networks to connect to each other. Your IP address is no secret, every site and connection you make can see your IP address.

You can do something called a "whois" on an IP and it returns basic information about it. Such as the city the (ISP server?) is located, usually the same city as you. So advertisements use a script that first checks the IP, whois it, and inserts the city it returns as.

It returning ads for company's in your city' might not be so much ATS doing but that of the ad services not being directly for one ad but a service that will insert an ad for a company close to you based on your IP address.

So instead of the ad inserting your citys name somewhere cleaver, the service would insert an ad that pays the service revenue to do so. So instead of ATS advertising for a company selling a certain product they give ad space to a company that inserts ads for the company's paying them. So like a middle man for advertising.

If that makes any sense.

reply to post by GodsOfNothing


It's nothing to do with ATS or script or cookies

Each and every request and responce needs an IP address on the internet else nothing would work.

Not having a static IP address can help but you would need to talk to your ISP on that one but my IP changes if i unplug the router for about ten seconds.

if i link to an image in this reply that is hosted on my webserver then i would know the IP address of everyone that views this page and i could also put cookies on your machine but apart from knowing how often the page is viewed or doing a reverse lookup on the IP address to see what country people are from it would not be much use.

Google on the other hand is everywhere and they have a profile on all of us and try as you might you can not realy stop them unless you sabatarge the data by sending back false data and electronicly clicking every advert thats shown so those that pay for the adverts become priced out.

i get locally oriented ads on many different sites... so its not ATS

i generally clean my temp internet files daily, maybe even 2X per day,
unless you have a real program to clean those cookies they will persist.

i used one such program for a month or so, but setting up a custom cleaning was too much a chore, not worth the effort...

besides, some of the info you provide to sites that run Fantasy Sports
is cross used by 3rd parties & those ubiquitious local ads that target your eyes will pop up or be in the page columns of Ads in about .099 secords to create a viewer-targeted web page ...
no big deal to me

Cheers and thanks to all who have posted informative and eye opening information to a relative newcomer to the net.
I now understand its not a site specific occurrence and it is after all a goal of the internet ....to make money.
Thanks again for the savvy replies.

The best way to block ads and such is run your own proxy server. Stop ads or the lookup of ad sites will dramaticly speed up your browsing experience. Since most don't have the experience to setup a proper proxy server, the second way is using a hosts file with all the advertising sites pointed back to your local machine. Good example is HERE.
It works on a level separate from the browsers so It won't matter if you use IE or FF, Chrome, ect.
It is not fool prof but it does add a level of protection. Each browser has ad-ons or other mechanisms to prevent ads.

Remember that sites like ATS only exist to run because of the revenue they generate from the advertisers. Firefox is the most popular browser and there is an ad-on that lets you white list certain sites so that the ads will display. The ad-on name escapes me but it could very well be the current ad-block ad on.

[edit on 6/10/2010 by staple]

Something else to think about...

Every time a YouTube video gets embedded in a thread, Google knows you have read that thread. They most likely can link that information to the other information on you, what searches you made, and so on. Google has such a far reach across the internet, they can virtually monitor your entire internet use, just by virtue of so many people using their scripts, adverts, and youtube embeds on their sites.

Even the White House website does this kind of thing, against their normal federal rules against tracking devices on government websites. Obama's legal team wrote a cover note to allow video sites to track your use of the white house website.

Start here and read around.

news.cnet.com...

Yes your IP is handed over left right and centre for everything you do on the net... Technically you shouldn't have to worry about it because your internet service provider should be the only one that can link that IP to you (or whoever pays for the connection).........

But, it's really not hard to build up a picture about someone by logging and cross referencing all the time that IP address interacts with whatever sites you are able to administer - a simple example would be 2 or 3 members of ATS living at the same address, the ATS site admin could simply look through the logs searching for a particular IP and times when it interacted with the site, putting 2 and 2 together they could easily see what members share the same connection... From that IP they can tell more or less the area you are from and your internet service provider... Your provider should not give up your details without a court order or something like that... But if you enter any details on a site you are fair game!