question on location obtained by website - How ?

[marks542004]

Hi, sorry if the title is confusing.

I regularly visit a website whicg is a specialist website for custom
engineering products.

The website puts up a banner ad about specials available from
associated businesses using my specific town name. (example: Get your
referance Books from Bookworld, xxxxxxx (my town name))

Most of the time these make no sense whatever because my town is less
than 600 people.

Anyway, they can not be getting the town name from the IP address
because I connect via dialup in another town and the ISP is based in a
third.

How might a site legitimatly be getting this information or does this
indicate a virus of some type.

It is just annoying because every time I access the site I get junk
email about products I have been looking at.
I use Firefox 1.04 as web browser.

thanks for any assistance.

[Adrienne]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed ma*********@yahoo.com writing in
news:11**********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com:

Hi, sorry if the title is confusing.

I regularly visit a website whicg is a specialist website for custom
engineering products.

The website puts up a banner ad about specials available from
associated businesses using my specific town name. (example: Get your
referance Books from Bookworld, xxxxxxx (my town name))

Most of the time these make no sense whatever because my town is less
than 600 people.

Anyway, they can not be getting the town name from the IP address
because I connect via dialup in another town and the ISP is based in a
third.

How might a site legitimatly be getting this information or does this
indicate a virus of some type.

It is just annoying because every time I access the site I get junk
email about products I have been looking at.

Have you ever signed up with them for anything? Newsletter, login to view
other parts of the site, etc? If so, there is probably a cookie set that
looks at your city's id number and finds the appropriate ad. Clear your
cookies, then set your browser to refuse cookies, and then visit the site.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

[marks542004]

Adrienne wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed ma*********@yahoo.com writing in
news:11**********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com:

Hi, sorry if the title is confusing.

I regularly visit a website whicg is a specialist website for custom
engineering products.

The website puts up a banner ad about specials available from
associated businesses using my specific town name. (example: Get your
referance Books from Bookworld, xxxxxxx (my town name))

Most of the time these make no sense whatever because my town is less
than 600 people.

Anyway, they can not be getting the town name from the IP address
because I connect via dialup in another town and the ISP is based in a
third.

How might a site legitimatly be getting this information or does this
indicate a virus of some type.

It is just annoying because every time I access the site I get junk
email about products I have been looking at.

Have you ever signed up with them for anything? Newsletter, login to view
other parts of the site, etc? If so, there is probably a cookie set that
looks at your city's id number and finds the appropriate ad. Clear your
cookies, then set your browser to refuse cookies, and then visit the site.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Not cookies - have deleted all cookies and allowed cookies for session
only.

A friend thought that there was information sent by the browser but did
not know where it got it from. My understanding was that the browser
only sends an ID string so the site can tell if it is Internet
explorer, Mozilla, etc.

The site is running a bunch of Javascript which I would disable but it
seems more sites are doing navigation via script.

[Dan]

ma*********@yahoo.com wrote:

Adrienne wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed ma*********@yahoo.com writing in
news:11**********************@g44g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com:

It is just annoying because every time I access the site I get junk
email about products I have been looking at.

Have you ever signed up with them for anything? Newsletter, login to view
other parts of the site, etc? If so, there is probably a cookie set that
looks at your city's id number and finds the appropriate ad. Clear your
cookies, then set your browser to refuse cookies, and then visit the site.

Not cookies - have deleted all cookies and allowed cookies for session
only.

Well, you must have signed up for them at some point and provided your
e-mail address, since there isn't any other way the site could send you
e-mail (your address is not sent by the browser when you surf the
site).

--
Dan