[flygon]

Please just take my words for it, but I could go into details if necessary. The Google sponsored ads have been getting very personal, as if Google knows me irl, and some of the YouTube recommended videos are also too personal and definitely out of place. To list a few examples, I have not visited a certain restaurant for a long time, and ads for that relatively minor restaurant showed up several times. I bought a cheap lock at a store, and that night a lock picking video explaining the vulnerability of a brass lock appeared on my homepage out of nowhere, and ads for locks from a company kept showing up for a few days. I barely search anything real life related on Google, and I have been on YouTube for over ten years, so I can tell. This first happened on my android phone on which I watch YouTube everyday. I switched to my iPhone and the same issue occurred. Reinstalled IOS and did a factory reset, and the issue still persisted. Blocking all cookies and using VPN did not resolve it. I switched to Invidious, a front-end to YouTube to watch videos, and while watching a Japanese gaming video, the related video section was littered with English relaxing music for sleep videos, as opposed to being filled up with all gaming videos normally. My parent has always been manipulative and wants to control like a Sims character. This actually started with Quora earlier this year leading to me terminating my Quora account. Have my devices been constantly hacked, or is the presence of a malware necessary at all for them to pull this off? Thank you and Merry Christmas in advance.

[fungionbrad]

Just sounds like targeted ads to me this can include your search history, websites visited, location data, and even information that you viewed from your email.

You can turn off personalized ads though.

For Google Ads:
Google Account Settings: Go to your Google account settings. You can do this by clicking on your profile picture in any Google service and selecting “Manage your Google Account.”

Data & Personalization: Navigate to the "Data & personalization" tab.

Ad Personalization: Look for the “Ad personalization” option and click on it. Here, you can turn off ad personalization. This will stop Google from using your data to personalize ads.

For YouTube:
YouTube History: Go to YouTube, click on your profile picture, and then select “Your data in YouTube.”

Activity Controls: Here, you can manage your YouTube history (including watch and search history). You can pause or delete your history.

Ad Settings: Additionally, within the same section, you can access ad settings related to YouTube.

[flygon]

I am not even logged in when using Google or YouTube, and I block all cookies on my browser which is Safari, and use VPN. There is literally no way Google would know about the restaurant I stopped visiting or the lock I bought at a store. Any idea how this could be achieved through hacking at all?

[DramaKing]

Please just take my words for it, but I could go into details if necessary. The Google sponsored ads have been getting very personal, as if Google knows me irl, and some of the YouTube recommended videos are also too personal and definitely out of place. To list a few examples, I have not visited a certain restaurant for a long time, and ads for that relatively minor restaurant showed up several times. I bought a cheap lock at a store, and that night a lock picking video explaining the vulnerability of a brass lock appeared on my homepage out of nowhere, and ads for locks from a company kept showing up for a few days. I barely search anything real life related on Google, and I have been on YouTube for over ten years, so I can tell. This first happened on my android phone on which I watch YouTube everyday. I switched to my iPhone and the same issue occurred. Reinstalled IOS and did a factory reset, and the issue still persisted. Blocking all cookies and using VPN did not resolve it. I switched to Invidious, a front-end to YouTube to watch videos, and while watching a Japanese gaming video, the related video section was littered with English relaxing music for sleep videos, as opposed to being filled up with all gaming videos normally. My parent has always been manipulative and wants to control like a Sims character. This actually started with Quora earlier this year leading to me terminating my Quora account. Have my devices been constantly hacked, or is the presence of a malware necessary at all for them to pull this off? Thank you and Merry Christmas in advance.

Sounds pretty invasive, but hacking in order that you see creepily specific ads would be a first. All I can suggest either is to turn off personalized ads.