That’s not how that works. Stop spreading this nonsense.
I experienced something different the other day. I was watching despicable me 4 on my PC and at the end of the movie they sang “everybody wants to rule the world” a few hours later I went to YouTube and on the home page is a video titled “the meaning behind the lyrics of everybody wants to rule the world”. real freaky. I never searched for the song in any form on YouTube.
but if you watched the movie with your google account logged in, perhaps others who watched the movie also searched the song from the end of the movies
I don’t know if phones are listening with an open mic, but I have no doubt they’re doing things like scraping text messages. I sent my wife a text saying “I need new dress shoes for work” then went to Amazon and the front page was filled with men’s dress shoes. And yes, I confirmed she hadn’t searched for them first.
- I once joked about getting a divorce, in a conference call. At work. On the company-provided laptop. Minutes later, my own phone’s social media feed started showing ads for divorce lawyers. I wasn’t married at that time, nor had I ever gotten a divorce.
- Got diagnosed with something I’d hever heard about before. Not a particularly serious condition, but very rare for people my age. Returning home, nothing but ads for medication, self-help groups and what have you.
They are totally listening.
I will use my new roof as an example.
back in February I needed a new roof. I have done zero internet searches for roofs, or related subjects (no searches about materials, contractors, regulations, aesthetics, nothing). My home also has no listening devices, so no Alexas or Google Homes, or any voice activated or automation of any kind. I dont even have any accounts on my phone, google or otherwise. My phone is for nothing but phone calls and text messages, with almost all the google and other stuff that can be disabled, being disabled to make it all the more creepy.
In my home, the first time I mentioned it to anyone aloud was to my grandmother, talking about the issues with the roof and how I’ll have to be getting a new one soon.
The only device in the room was my phone. on the kitchen table, infront of me.
I did no searches for roofs or anything roof related afterwards, on any device. Nor did my grandmother (she half blind and can barely answer her phone, much less start doing internet searches about shit)
By the end of the day I had gotten 12 spam mails about roof contractors/new roofs/etc, where I had never received any prior (searched my emails to prove this fact, they go back years)
And every day since, I have gotten between 5-25 new spam mails, pushing every kind of roof related spam you can imagine. Despite the roof long since being done and over with.
And thats not the first time its happened either, Its just what made me start taking notice. It has happened several more times now that I’ve been taking notice of it.
The phone is listening, and I don’t care who says otherwise.
Coincidences can happen, but multiple coincidences cease to be coincidences and start becoming a pattern of behavior and concern.
The way this stuff works is by collecting many data sources and combining them. It doesnt have to be you that searches for roof stuff, could just be someone connected to you searched for it while on your WiFi, or say you call your mom or dad and then they start searching for a roof company online.
Literally addressed all that.
Those were examples meant to get you thinking about how data points you might not have realized even were data points or that they could be collected and combined.
I’m truing to impress on you that there is not just a dozen or so avenues to take your data that you need to think about (cloud based anything, phones, computers, TVs, payment cards), its thousands of them.
Literally every single service shares with nearly every other service through the advertising network.
The only reason that this is even still a discussion is because it can’t be prevent they dont do something. No matter what proof is out forward, noone would ever 100% say anything about it. Its still more likely that your data was combined aggressively enough with those around you to the extent it felt akin to spying.
I was just talking about this recently on here I think. I actually had a chance to dispel this myth a bit with a family member who came to stay with me recently.
They are convinced that their news feeds and ads constantly come up with topics that would be too coincidental to explain any other way than their smart devices are constantly recording their verbal conversations. Conveniently enough, it happened several times during their visit!
As examples, the family member and I talked about how we like okra and they mentioned it had been a long time since they had good okra. Afterwards, stories and recipes for okra started showing up in their news feed. We also chatted for a bit about a specific actor that used to be in a bunch of movies, but that we don’t really see them in much of anything anymore. Then they started getting ads for that actor’s movies. This happened with a couple more things as well.
In the end, it was all completely explainable.
After the okra conversation, I looked up okra recipes because I intended to make some as part of meal for us since we both enjoy it and hadn’t had it for awhile. Since we’re both on the same wifi (and thus have the same IP address externally), those news items were almost certainly triggered by my recipe search.
For the famous actor, my family member had been watching some of his old movies on one of our streaming services that they don’t have at home, so they were trying to catch up on things they’d like to see while they were visiting. It’s not hard to imagine if you watch a couple Tom Hanks movies on Hulu (no that’s not the actual actor or service), then you might start seeing ads for related movies that he may also have starred in, again, given that your smart devices are on the same wifi and have the same IP as mine.
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This shit pisses me off the most. Happens all the time and I absolutely hate it. How do we still not have legislation around this? (Because: Money)
