Have any of you noticed these Omnipod ads following you around on the internet? I'm not very private about the fact that I'm a diabetic but it still creeps me out a bit. Looked into it and discovered these ads are coming from Google's AdSense program via double click. I reviewed Google's ad policy and they clearly state that they do not use any personal health related information to serve ads. Seems to me that's exactly what they are doing.
I love my omnipod, it has changed my life but it seems like our friends at Insulet are stepping over the privacy line in and are wasting their money trying to sell me an omnipod.
This is just done by looking at the cookies stored on your computer by the web browser....if they've seen you've gone to a diabetes related site (or even insulet's site) they run that ad. I've seen the same thing with other products like shoes or cruises...you will start getting ads related to those things after you visit a related site . This can all be stopped by changing browser privacy settings to block cookies. Of course it will also make other things harder like, for instance, staying logged in to this site.
Guys, They don't know you're a T1. I'm not a T1 and the same ads follow me. It depends on what type of websites you visit. It's also NOT Google. It's EVERY browser and it was started when the internet became popular and Internet Explorer was created by Microsoft. Just "delete" all your cookies and "disable" your cookies and it will stop following you. Cheers, Gil
It is happening to all of us! Especially if you spend any of your tiime taking online surveys, which they assure you "Your personal information willl NOT be sold to anyone to use for markeitng " Turns out that is just a BiG LIE. I have thought about Calling them on this with a lawfirm, but it isnt worth the effort. I TOO DONT REALLY CARE WHO KNOWS i AM T1 BUT NOW I DO (ESPECIALLY WHEN ONLINE) AND WILL NOT GIVE ANYONE THAT INFORMATION UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
I agree w/ what the others have said. It's not google being creepy. It's any time that you've visited a site like this, your cookies are tracking you. The ads that any site runs are based on these cookies. When I watch youtube videos, these sort of ads pop up, even though the video has nothing to do w/ diabetes...it's b/c they are using an ad service that tracks cookies and picks possible "sponsors" to run based on the cookies. So your PHI has not been hacked in any way. It's just a balancing act of how often you want to have to re-enter passwords, etc, with the sites that you frequently visit (in order to potentially not have these ads "follow" you around).
Interesting discussion, good arguments on both sides of this one as is usual with this group. I'm a web developer so I did know how this is happening. Still think it's a privacy violation for me since I actually am a T1 and someone like my employer could infer that information if they looked at my browsing history.
