Hi there! I like to listen to the “Slightly something else” podcast. Although it is gaming-related, they have these ad-segments that have some kind of targetting, as it is always in the language from where I’ve downloaded the episone.

Yesterday I was really surprised that the ad seemed very well targeted, because it has been referencing a very specific topic concerning my flatmates and me that doesn’t have anything to do with gaming.

My first theory was that my IP was correlated with search terms my partner googled in my home IP (I search with searxng). But then I realized that I’ve subscribed to another podcast related to the advertised topic. (also: the episode with the advertisements was downloaded via mobile network)

So… Apparently, spotify (where slightly something else is hosted via anchor.fm) analyzes the podcasts I subscribe to via rss feed. Is there any way how I can avoid being profiled? Is this the reason why I’d start using a commercial VPN?

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Start using an open source program to get your podcasts, like antennaPod which is excellent.

    If it continues to be a problem, then you can download your podcast over ToR for free.

    Or you could use one of the privacy respecting VPNs like Mullvad. Well worth the $5 a month they charge

      • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Antenna pod would at least help remove the personalized ads, because they wouldn’t be using the very intrusive proprietary application.

        I don’t know what the current recommended best practices, but you can watch YouTube on tor. And since their use case is not about anonymization from a APT, but rather just preventing personalized ads it seems sufficient.

        • ErwinLottemann@feddit.de
          2·
          1 year ago

          unfortunately there are still ads in the podcasts antennapod downloads. podgrab on the other hand downloads adfree versions apparently. i’m not sure why, though 😐

  • bbbhltz@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    You can use yt-dlp to download entire channels. I’ve noticed that this can sometimes cut out the ad entirely. Other times I will get a targeted ad.

    Anchor.fm is part of Spotify and most of the time you will receive some sort of targeted ad no matter if the app is open source or not.

    What you are describing may be an instance of Cross-Device Ad Targeting.

  • imkali@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    1 year ago

    Listen to it through a different, open source app, like a Podcasting 2.0 app (for example podverse, heres a link to that podcast link)

    • Prunebutt@feddit.deOP
      1·
      1 year ago
      1. Already using Antennapod
      2. Never heard of “Podcasting 2.0”, but it seems sketchy, tbh.
      3. The link you supplied uses the same anchor.fm (spotify) feed as the official one
      • d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        1 year ago

        The main reason people are distributing podcasts via youtube or spotify and not via RSS is because podcast RSS (podcasting 1.0) gives limited visibility into audience or whether anyone even cares.

        Podcasting 2.0 is trying to build a standard that still uses RSS but provides the info podcast creators need to understand their audience. Basically, what can we do to keep people from relying on closed-source solutions and go back to RSS as the main driver of distribution. Its not intended to be used for targeting and mostly just provides download counts and such (which rss doesnt)