How does my browser know I am Indian?

by | Thursday, August 07, 2008

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that some webpages I visit have banner ads that are targeted to me quite specifically – in particular to my Indian origin.

For instance this page (a story about ipods being used by the army) contains a set of banner ads that seek to find me a “perfect Indian partner in Michigan.” See the images below one from this page and another from a different website – whose URL I forgot to record.

I know they can figure out Michigan (or East Lansing) from my IP address – and I had seen these sort of geography-based targeted ads before. What surprised me about this latest set of advertisements is their focus on India. How did they figure that out? Is it because I follow some Desi Blogs (see blogroll on left?) or because I visit Indian news sites once in a while?

I wonder what advertisements other people are seeing when they visit these pages?

Combine this with how my browser history reveals my gender (something I had posted about earlier)… it just reinforces my thoughts on the end of practical obscurity.

And finally, just in case you think these guys know everything about me – that’s not really true. I am most emphatically NOT looking for any kind of matrimonial service… 🙂

A few randomly selected blog posts…

On taking beautiful risks

On taking beautiful risks

Dr. Ronald Beghetto, Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, is an internationally recognized expert on creative thought and action in educational settings. He is a Fellow of the American...

Plagiarism, update II

Just heard back from Innovation Tools. They are changing the status of the articles by Dr. Jiles to "not visible" till, as they say, "the matter is settled." It is not clear to me what "settled" means. I doubt that David Jiles Ph.D. is emailing me (or anybody else)...

University courses using TPACK

Matt Koehler and I rarely (if ever) explicitly mention the TPACK framework in our teaching. Of course the framework guides all that we do in class - but we have never really felt the need to throw another acronym (or series of acronyms such as TK, CK, TPK and so on)...

Inspiring creativity, when more is more…

We have all heard the statement that "less is more" and in many instances that may actually be true. Good design, for instance, often is based on the KISS principle, which, come to think of it, maybe an example of Less is More. That said, there may be situations where...

By the numbers

Today's NYTimes story about an economist ranking art by the numbers (see A Textbook Example of Ranking Artworks) bothered me a bit. As the article says, David Galenson's method is based not on the aesthetic qualities of the artwork but rather on "how frequently an...

Shin, et. al. wins Outstanding paper award

Just found out that Shin, T., Koehler, M.J., Mishra, P. Schmidt, D., Baran, E., & Thompson, A.,(2009, March). Changing technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) through course experiences. Paper presented at the 2009 International Conference of the Society...

Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

Digital Shadows: AI Scripts a Different Curriculum

As we continue to grapple with the hype and transformative potential of generative AI in education, I find myself revisiting a point I've made before: the most significant impacts of this technology may not be within the classroom walls, but in the world that...

Space Invaders in Paris

France is being attacked by alien beings! This summer in France I noticed characters from 80's video games in the strangest of places. For instance, see this one, that I found while walking somewhere near the Latin Quarter in Paris. And though I took a picture of just...

Impact of technology v.s. chewing gum on learning

Just got this from Tom Reeves at the CIMA conference, Twente University. Allen, K. L., Galvis, D., Katz, R. V. (2006). Evaluation of CDs and chewing gum in teaching dental anatomy. The New York state dental journal. 72(4): pp 30-33. Abstract: The purposes of this...

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