I don’t mean online where gdpr applies I mean in physical stores. My company uses a service called bridg but there’s others. If you swipe your card to buy something at my business and I don’t know anything about you except that card swipe. I can find out who you are, where you live, your approximate income etc. Then cross reference that with any other database that can be bought or other bridg partners to know your spending habits. Then I can say find me more customers matching op profile for my business and that’s how you get targeted in the real world. Online it’s 100x easier for them because you are typically getting something mailed.

You know when you use your credit card and it shows the last 4 digits on the receipt big data collects all that and knows exactly who you are and where you shop and is used for targeted ads and demographic research. If you ever used your credit card where they know your name/ delivery address and even if you didn’t they know exactly who you are. This technology is old as dirt not even sure why PayPal announced this like it’s a big deal.

I saw your edit are you able to get an asus router in your budget? Check Facebook and Craigslist. That’s gonna be the best brand you can buy with the most features. I got a little usb drive hooked up and it has a built in encrypted torrent Downloader. Mine is pretty expensive but I’m sure you can find a used one.