Coincidence or something more suspicious [hmm]

No you aren't being paranoid, some computer is sitting somewhere analysing everything we do. I think cookies have something to do with it? Can you tell I'm not very tech?

It's very strange: sometimes adverts appear on my phone for things I have been talking about. Properly talking, in person, not even online!

I agree - are choices and preferences are tracked online and if you have Cortana switched on on your PC, that will earwig and then make suggestions based on what it has heard. The other thing I find spooky is location tracker. Somehow it has found me and knows where I go - oo-er!

our - not are!

Yes I can understand about looking at things online but to receive an email about things I looked at in a department store is a little odd.

Maybe the items you looked at had been displayed prominently because they were going to do a promotion (including emails) and they were the sort of thing you had bought from them in the past? So you were actually drawn to them without realising it.....You didn't use a free drink and cake voucher while you were there by any chance?

Big Brother is watching you!

I find it amazing that items I have looked at on my laptop subsequently appear on my phone.

What I can never understand is being bombarded by adverts to buy something I have just bought. Currently I am getting lots of ads to buy bunk beds having bought some for DGC a month or so ago. They are not exactly an item that having bought once you immediately want to buy another!!

I might have used my cake and drink voucher. Why, do you think my tea cup was bugged

Maybe your drink was made with a tea bug..

That free drink is very clever; my latest one runs out in November. They know I'm bound to buy something Christmassy when I'm there.

George Orwell just got the year wrong.

If you don't want to be tracked when you are shopping, turn off your smart phone WiFi. Use your mobile data instead if you still want to use the internet, otherwise turn that off too.

Also, when you are browsing the internet, looking for items you might buy, turn on Private Browsing on Apple devices, InPrivate browsing in Windows Edge or Incognito mode on Chromebook. In fact most browsers allow you to browse without being tracked. However, your favourite websites will not recognise you and you will have to log in each time. Once you do that, they know who you are and what you are looking at anyway. But, presumably, you consider that acceptable or else you wouldn't have an account with them.

Can you switch Cortana off? How can you tell if it's on? I have seen the icon on my laptop but I've no idea what it is. Anyway, if I'm on my laptop I'm working, writing or reading and don't usually talk at the same time. I am quite happy with my supermarket tracking my purchases but why do they send me adverts for nappies or pet food if I've never bought any?

Some times, when you have entered a comp etc , your email address is then given out to other companies, and it is so annoying , x

It's the tech world... you can even be watched through the cam on your laptop...

I looked at an item on Amazon a few times, low and behold the next day I received an email from then offering me £20.00 off the price. The item was delivered yesterday !!
I have heard this happening before but was very pleased when that email arrived.

You are not being paranoid, customers are tracked through their mobile phones.

Your mobile phone is the culprit along with loyalty cards and credit cards. Its called geofencing, this is the technique used by shops. Look it up on google. It does have positive uses i.e. to help police with enquiries or alert you of traffic jams etc

I agree with MOnica about being offered things you have just bought.
The other thing I don't think theye have got right yet is on amazon...."people who bought this also bought"......which seems pretty random.
Buying a halogen heater doesn't make me more likely to want a yellow windbreak, or a pair of lace briefs!

I did a reasonably big shop at M&S recently and shortly afterwards received an email from them along the lines of 'hi, Nona, how did you enjoy our strawberries?'
I know it doesn't take rocket science to work out how they knew what I'd bought but in an odd way this really spooked me. Big Brother in the shopping trolley. Don't like it at all.

Amazon is in trouble for advising on how to create a bomb, according to the Telegraph today, buy one item and you will be offered the others such as ball bearings, switches and detonators!
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/19/bomb-ingredients-sold-together-amazon/
Your phone tracks your movements, and listens in to your conversations, so if you mentioned the goods to anyone whilst in John Lewis, that would have been picked up. Equally your laptop will listen in just in case you are going to say 'Cortana' or 'Siri' and there is no way I would get an Amazon Dot!

You can switch off Cortana, just Google for instructions, (Google will record that you are doing that) but with each Windows update it is becoming more and more complicated!

Delete your browsing history regularly if you want to preserve some privacy, and buy the little stick on covers for your phone and laptop cameras that you can slide across to take photos and then slide back to block unauthorised access.

BTW I just switched on my phone, and at the top it said 'In a bad mood? let music soothe you' and suggested a playlist. How dare it decide what mood I'm in?!!!!

Its the cookies on the internet. Its all about marketing. You are not being "tracked" in the sense you are thinking about. No matter what we do, it it involves technology, we are "tracked".