My game ads get more pornographic at my parents' house. iin

20% Normal
6 Comments

I've become addicted to a smartphone game over the past few weeks while I've been staying with my parents over lockdown.

The ads on this game were for other games and mostly featured hentai manga and were about dominating and/or mistreating women for pleasure. I made sure ad preferences were turned off, in case these ads somehow came from my is it normal browsing habits and my occasional forays into Google Images for titillating material. No change. I tolerated it grudgingly because I was addicted to my game.

Then I got home from my parents' house, connected to my own WiFi network and hey presto. No more X-rated ads. What a relief.

So what was all that about at my parents' house?? Are ads filtered through the WiFi router when ad preferences are turned off? And what does this imply about my parents' browsing habits??

Voting Results
20% Normal
Based on 5 votes (1 yes)
Help us keep this site organized and clean. Thanks!
[ Report Post ]
Comments ( 6 )
  • SwickDinging
    2 years ago

    I watch porn and I never get sexually explicit adverts of any sort.

    I'm pigeonholed by the internet as a boring, middle aged mum of young kids, so I get adverts for pet insurance, face creams and baby strollers, regardless of how much porn I've been watching.

    Sounds more like some sort of malware problem. Which I suppose could have been the result of looking at a dodgy porn site, but could have just as easily come from somewhere else.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
    1
    1
  • Somenormie
    2 years ago

    I get ones which would get you up sign up for fake and scamming websites and ones which were way too vulgar for the naked eyes.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
    1
    1
      -
    • Anonymous Post Author
      2 years ago

      Yeah, they were like that. *Shudder*. Though I don't know whether the sites were scamming ones because I try my hardest not to click on the ads.

      Comment Hidden ( show )
      0
      0
  • JellyBeanBandit
    2 years ago

    It probably is because of connecting to two different routers, but it might not be anything to do with the two different browsing habits. It could just be the settings or age-based targeting or something.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
    0
    0
  • Boojum
    2 years ago

    I'd find that drastic difference pretty damn suspicious.

    How internet safety aware are your parents? If they aren't technical at all and they're blasé to the point of idiocy about online security, it's possible someone has unknowingly installed something malicious on at least one of the machines on their WiFi network that sends out "Kick Me!" packets to an advertising bot (or bots) somewhere. Since the IP addresses of ordinary domestic consumers are not fixed and usually change every time the connection to the provider drops for even a second, those signals have to be sent regularly. And, yeah, given the nature of the advertising you were getting, it seems to me the odds are good that whatever whomever has unknowingly installed, it was probably porn-related. And possibly the advertiser's algorithm is clever enough to take account of how particular flavours of porn sent to particular machine's are more likely to get a click.

    But on the other hand, it's possible the ads had nothing to do with your parents. Advertising algorithm are seriously weird and often unpredictable things, even to their creators. Who knows? Maybe the algorithm has registered that people in the geographical area of your parents' house are more likely to click on those sorts of ads. Is there a seminary nearby? Do they live near Bob Jones "University" or some other infestation of young, male Bible bashers?

    Comment Hidden ( show )
    0
    0
      -
    • Anonymous Post Author
      2 years ago

      Thanks for your long and detailed response. No, there aren't any seminaries near me. Nobody in that household has a faith except me, when I visit them.

      My parents' marriage is sexless (according to my mum) and my adult brother lives with them. He has a long-distance boyfriend whom he can't see because of corona. So pretty much everyone in the house is sexually frustrated.

      In situations like these I know that people are susceptible to developing porn habits, but it's just too weird/creepy/sad for me to imagine any or all of my close family members masturbating to porn alone in their rooms under the same roof, especially since they're all in long-term romantic relationships.

      If the ads I get through their WiFi networks are almost all about pornographic games, then it feeds into the conclusion that that's what they do...

      Comment Hidden ( show )
      0
      0