It would be weird if that sort of coincidence never happened. Two incidents of this happening to you ever doesn’t sound like much. Maybe even a bit low.

If they really are using audio for ad targeting like they do with search history, then it should be easy enough to prove it by experiment.

Sure. I am used to, nay, I _expect_ ads for software tools and music gear given my work and hobbies in my life, as I frequently talk about those things to my friend on FB and IRL all the time.

But wiper blades is so off the charts for me, that I was totally surprised to see about 3 ads for them the day after I had a discussion in the car. I don't even go to sites remotely associated with the automotive industry. Not even locality based, as it was a full 4 months out of the real 'wet season' we have later in the year. (NOTE: Not even in our wet season did I see random ads for wiper blades).

Having said that, I won't be surprised to see more wiper blade ads now that I have been talking about it on HN - who knows if they have linked up the data from online forums back to FB etc.? The handle I use here I tend to use on nearly all online forums I belong to.

I read that you do web app work and like to keep browsers stock, if it’s not too forward consider debugging in private mode in a pinch.

> I don't use ad blockers, due to my development work in web apps etc. I like my browsers to be as stock as possible, and I do actually at least glance at nearly all ads I see in FB etc. just to see how their targeting is being skewed by my search history or messaging online.

You are doing yourself a disservice. Have two users (or at least two browsers), one for work, which you keep ad-blocker free, and one for life, which you shouldn't.

Just a note, not trying to pick your anecdote, but the experience of something seemingly occuring frequently out of nowhere is exactly the baader-meinhof phenomenon. You’d need to demonstrate a causal link to firmly disprove it, which would assumably be difficult in this case.