Google uses the whole bag of tricks to correlate your location and other personal information, they are actively engaging in a surveillance system which previous Stasi members (yes Eastern Germany) have described as a wet dream.

That can include any number of avenues, including from implants they've put on devices you may carry. For example, even if you don't have location services on, depending on the model it will keep the last X number of AP points and cell towers that came into range, and that information may be used to correlate your location regardless of if the feature was turned on or off by you. I'm pretty sure intermediate cell towers sell some of this information to Accurint which is where most governments agencies go for information when not Palantir.

Google has a lot of ad fraud because of their pernicious use of surveillance may indicate you fall within a demographic to their ad companies that you do not, but they are the only marketshare in town for ad providers.

No there isn't a way to game the system in any way, you have no control over their algorithms, or even your own hardware.

You may also notice that if you talk about a specific thing hitting the same keywords over and over within a few minutes, within range of one of those devices all the ads switch to that thing. Like a purple dog collar. Technically that's wiretapping, and should be illegal, but no ones holding them to account because someones decided its not illegal if an algorithm does it?

For anyone not aware of the tech involved in this, this may seem like a tinfoil hat like response invoking the I can't believe it response. That's fine, but it is happening regardless of people thinking those thoughts, and you have no agency to change or stop it which was by design.

If you are unhappy with that, the only option is to become an expert in the technology, or bury your head in the sand.

The thing that most people don't get about privacy is, privacy is your future.
If you give up your privacy, you are giving up your future.

Whatever that may be, its what you are trading when you use anything made by companies involved in this despicable and evil trade.

You become a victim to anyone who pays to have access to that information or some derivative of it, and its done in a subtle way that you don't concretely know when that's been used against you or when its happening.

Those companies won't give you enough information to make an informed decision about it because they are deceitful and malevolent by design and have used leveraged buyouts to consolidate that power in a global game of monopoly, and most likely received funds from people within the government to set this up in the first place.

They have gotten where they are now at by stripping agency, and voice, and corrupting and subverting the areas they would normally be held to account.

So the only real alternative without specialized knowledge is to become a luddite and not engage in society (in the US).

This mostly because everything is being forced through compulsion into the online space without proper safeguards, you have companies who are acting as arms of government without government oversight, which is also by design.

Most people can't become a specialist at tech overnight, and the people that do go the luddite route are ostracized, and have less opportunities for anything that falls in the social spectrum.

Many people do not realize just how bad things have gotten because they rely on institutions to get their news, such as from the Sinclair's of the world.

If you have a chance look at the deadspin Sinclair video. That was made years ago, and despite that and other issues, they were still authorized for further mergers to consolidate their business.

The reason the world is getting so crazy and going off the rails is because these 'evil' people have been allowed to continue this attack on agency and speech without restriction, and the people responsible for not taking action against these companies are the same people we voted into office but more appropriately were tweedism'ed into office without a real choice by us.

When you look at social media stuff, you always have to wonder if the people responding are real, most of the time if the post has an algorithmic negative sentiment then you'll be downvoted, not by real people but by bots. To de-amplify your voice. The same goes for news, to amplify your engagement.

If you've read any history, you would understand we have very dark times ahead of us, and the previous generation who came to power in the 90s, will have a legacy of the generation that failed in every area that counted because they sacrificed their childrens future for short term goods which were then stolen from them under the same framework they supported.