[blizzard]

Hi there, quick question regarding something that happened recently. I'm at my parents' house with my laptop, and 2 days ago I was showing him how to comparison shop for car rentals online by loading up a bunch of rental websites at once (pretty standard fare). Essentially I googled 'car rental tampa' and loaded the most promising links, and then got a bunch of quotes for him. This was all done on my laptop, which normally resides with me halfway across the continent. Earlier today, HE got an email on HIS email account from a firm called Hotwire that told him he had been noticed searching for 'car rental tampa' and here was a much better rate for him. Thing is, neither I nor he had visited or entered any information on Hotwire, nor had we heard of it or visited it before. I checked my history. The only way I can think that he would have gotten an email is if our IP was tracked by a third party, and then matched to an email address for advertising purposes. Further, if I HAD entered an email for quote purposes, it would have been mine, not his. I'm a little confused and a lot concerned about the implications this might have the privacy of his connection. Is this a common or known thing? Or should I be calling his ISP to politely inquire 'wtf?'.

[TETENAL]

The only one who can match an IP address with a specific user is the ISP. And if your father's did that without a court order, that ISP should be in gigantic trouble!

I think it's far more likely that your father entered his e-mail address somewhere and forgot about it.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

You know what? My dad asked me this exact same question two days ago over something that happened to him.

A couple weeks ago he was looking around for a new fireplace for their house, so he happened to look at Eden Pure, who make portable heaters. He was just looking at the heater on their site, and then decided that it wasn't what he was looking for so he left.

A couple days ago in the mail, he got an envelope addressed to his full name, at his home address. It was a flyer with detailed information on the Eden Pure heater.

*dun dun dunnnnnn*

That's either the oddest coincidence ever, or something very, very disconcerting went on, hmmmm?

greg

[Chuckit]

Hotwire.com is a legitimate travel site AFAIK. You might try asking them how they came to be in possession of his email address. As TETENAL theorized, my bet is that he had gone there at some point (maybe yesterday as a followup), gave them his contact info and forgot about it.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

The only one who can match an IP address with a specific user is the ISP. And if your father's did that without a court order, that ISP should be in gigantic trouble!

I think it's far more likely that your father entered his e-mail address somewhere and forgot about it.

I'd put my money on that last part there - somewhere an e-mail address and an IRL address was submitted.

There is the other option - someone in DHS is having a little fun with civilians, but I doubt it.

[ghporter]

I think it's Google. Or whatever search engine you used. Those paid/sponsored links that they show at the top? They're not just for your benefit-if yours at all. The search engine company sells data about who uses their services for what. Google does this pretty transparently, it's just that people don't think about it.

[Chuckit]

Google sells links and even will even you know when they send people to your site with certain search terms, but Google doesn't give your email address out.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I think it's Google. Or whatever search engine you used. Those paid/sponsored links that they show at the top? They're not just for your benefit-if yours at all. The search engine company sells data about who uses their services for what. Google does this pretty transparently, it's just that people don't think about it.

Google wouldn't sell personally identifiable information from a standard web search, even to its paid advertisers.

[reader50]

Are all the affected people in the UK? They're having DPI fun with ads over there. Potentially, DPI-based advertising can match your browsing with your email / name / phone if you entered any of those at any site during the session.

[Big Mac]

In the UK, that's surprising. Don't they have much stronger privacy laws against corporations there?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Are all the affected people in the UK? They're having DPI fun with ads over there. Potentially, DPI-based advertising can match your browsing with your email / name / phone if you entered any of those at any site during the session.

Both of the posters are Canadian, so that would be odd.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

You might try asking them how they came to be in possession of his email address.

Pff, what do you expect to hear from them ?

Their standard answer is going to be that you opted in for information, no matter if you did or not. You'll never get a honest and truthful answer for something that basically surmounts to spamming.

It's like all these sh!tty websites where you sign up and specifically UNCHECK the checkboxes about future emails and information, and they just completely ignore that you opted out.
Later, they say you opted in when you signed up, though you never did.

-t

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Yeah, that was my Dad's question: how they could get his name and address when he was only browsing their product. He never filled out a form or requested more info; he only looked at the stoves enough to figure out that it wasn't what he was looking for, and then left.

It seems a little too random to be a coincidence...?

greg

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Google sells links and even will even you know when they send people to your site with certain search terms, but Google doesn't give your email address out.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Google wouldn't sell personally identifiable information from a standard web search, even to its paid advertisers.

Yeah, excellent point. I didn't think about it being a direct emailing when I posted.

On the other hand, any site you register on with an email address (Dad's in this case) could conceivably share that data with other like-minded sites. And since Hotwire (and some others) aggregate both customers and travel related products (hotels, flights, rental cars), they may have a deal with a variety of car rental companies to share that sort of thing.

[blizzard]

I think the part that gets me is that the search was conducted on my computer, which is in no way associated with my dad or his email aside from sharing the common IP that results from our router. If I had clicked on any link that might provide information to a website, would it not have provided MY contact information and not HIS?

[Uncle Skeleton]

Could it somehow be the router's doing? Is the router made by AOL or a Nigerian prince or something?

[thechidz]

hotwire is related to orbitz. I've noticed this kind of thing happening as well. If you do a search at orbitz and you have an account there hotwire will send you an email.

[Chongo]

hmm. Carnivore and Echelon at work?