Not to interject in your story-telling, but don’t those pop-ups play to your own interests?
(just saying)
I was doing some research on an old article (Mississippi couple that got caught going to work for ISIS).
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/03/30/mississippi-woman-who-attempted-to-join-isis-pleads-guilty-to-terror-charge.html?intcmp=hphz09
The story focused on the lady (who had been a high school cheerleader). I wanted to know more about the fellow she married so I googled (startpage actually, I don't do google) his name. I forgot where it took me, but eventually it was a CBS story.
Now I believe you are right, except I have a add on program (called Click&Clean) on my computer (running IceDragon which is a Firefox based browser) the kills all cookies as I browse the net. I frequently make sure I have little to no cookies for a history for ad providers to use.