One Degree of Separation

I have a small but real fascination with how "targeted advertising" works on the Internet. As we surf, certain websites are tracking us and our browsing/buying habits, the better to display advertising that will be of interest to us. For a while, every time I went to Google, an ad in the margins would try to sell me Bobby Darin ring-tones…and I couldn't figure out why, of all the eighty zillion recording artists who have ever cut an album, Bobby Darin was being presented to me, not occasionally but often. I finally figured out it had something to do with the fact that my cousin David, who shares my surname, authored a book on Mr. Darin. Somehow, in the cryptic algorithms that are Google, "Evanier" and "Bobby Darin" are linked…so Google thinks I'm a likely customer for things relating to Bobby.

Today, I'm getting this one when I go to Google. This is a screen capture image…

googlead

I haven't Googled Jack's name in quite a while but I have in the past. I also have a Google News Alert set to e-mail me whenever his name turns up on Google News. It often brings me headlines about John T. "Jack" Kirby, a sewer worker who's running to be mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island. I also get plenty of news about Superior Court Judge Jack Kirby down in Georgia. (My Jack Kirby would have made an excellent judge or mayor, by the way.)

So is that why I got the above ad? Or is it because my name is linked to Jack in a lot of places on the 'net, especially since my book on him came out?