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Comment by emsy | Hacker News Reader

I once googled (before I had privacy plugins) for a coffee machine. Bought coffee machine. I was stalked by coffee machine ads for a month.

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Amazon is the worst about this. "You just bought an ITEM_X, clearly you want to buy ITEM_X_CLONE as well." So stupid.

Try the "this was a gift" checkbox in order history. I've been hesitant to share this as I don't want it to stop working, but it's magic for me. Allows you to select what you want ads for in the future.

Yeah, the algorithm behind that is insanely stupid for a company with so many technical resources. No, Amazon, I don't want to buy three more $1,300 SLR cameras.

I think that's why I find it particularly inexcusable. No company pulling in that much money, with that kind of tech muscle, should have a recommendation system that poor.

Once in awhile it will reanimate old purchases too.

I took a class in college many years ago to meet a diversity requirement that involved reading a bunch of books about gay Latinos. I'm neither gay nor Latino, but something refreshes that connection -- every couple of years they decide to hit me up with books on the topic, including books that I bought for the class.

Maybe their algorithms is trying to any nostalgia you might be having for some old topic? In your case they figured wrong, but I can see how it could work for old games, movies, music, tv shows, etc.

It's the worst when ITEM_X is a large TV. I wonder what percentage of TV buyers will impulse-buy a second TV because of "you might also like.." recommendations. Can't they make a list of products compatible with my TV and sell me that?

I'm sure they could. I certainly got an email from them a few weeks after buying a camera offering me accessories for it.

I wish there was a way to tell an advertiser "I Bought it, stop bothering me".

I don't want to completely block ads because I understand how they bring in money, but there has to be a way to interact with them a bit to make them less annoying.

I have searched for help info about Xero. I already use it, but repeatedly get their ads now.

Saddest bit is that I own Xero shares, so not excited that they're wasting money on ads!

Had the same thing happen to me with a monitor. I neglected to install an ad-blocker right away on that freshly installed computer. Not making that mistake again.

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