In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

Um, exactly, they don't. My kids were belting out a song from a movie this morning and I got an ad for the movie. I was talking about my Sawtooth guitar and got ads for saw blades and guitars. They just have algorithms that blast based on keywords picked up, it's not sophisticated. It's like a google AdSense when you search, you type in "I want to learn to play a random song on electric guitar" and you get ads at the top of the results page for guitars (keyword) and maybe lessons ("learn to play"). They aren't deep diving into "want" or even "electric". 

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

It's all just coincidences hahaha. They say they can access your microphone, your camera, any device connected to your network, any account you access from your network, but they don't. I mean why would they. It's not like that will make them more wealthy. I mean, Zuck has lots of money, I'm sure he's content. They say then can, but they don't. They are very trustworthy. 
The fact that many, many people report ads targeting not their browsing history, but words being said in the household appear in targeted ads within hours time and time again is just a happy accident.  
I guess we should dismiss the words IN THEIR TERMS OF USE, right?  
I'm doing intermittent fasting right now. We were talking about it a few months ago, when I started. My 13 year old starts to get intermittent fasting ads on his phone the next morning. He has never searched for that. Ever. I guess that ad was randomly set to come on his phone at some time, it just happened to come up 12 hours after his mom and I were talking about it in the same room where his phone was sitting?  
yup. 

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

So you think this wouldn't have shown up in a talk at DEFCON, as someone tries to deconstruct the data being sent back to advertising services using a multitude of tools at their disposal? Someone at the the EFF wouldn't have captured the data and analyzed it? Or one of the public policy centers, who E36 M3 all over Zoom for the end to end encryption debacle, wouldn't trot this out?

These people have made a career of hacking at any device with a network connection, up to and including little known sex toys. They've discovered TVs spying on media that you play, E2EE encryption lies, deconstructed government sponsored malware, and the list goes on.

If big advertising platforms were doing what you claim they, the cover up would be on an unbelievable scale and bring in everyone from big tech coddlers to anarchists.

I can't disprove a negative but it seems highly unlikely given how data is packaged and transmitted.

In reply to DrBoost :

Services exist to fingerprint networks and locations. Google Analytics famously disabled this last year to great ire.

I'd bet you did a search on intermittent fasting and a service like Leadfeeder ID'd your network, then retargeted some ads based upon that.

It's super easy to do, I get 4 to 5 calls a week from companies offering that service.

You guys are arguing a conspiracy on the level of Qannon exists in the advertising world when data is more transparent than the inner workings of government. You couldn't hide something like that, on the scale it's utilized on, for too long in the tech world.

Better yet. Go grab a copy of Wireshark, drop the phone on your network, filter by IP, then deconstruct the message body transmitted by the phone during a conversation or shout random words at it from a dictionary. See if anything is transmitted.

They say they can, but they wouldn't?

So two days ago I have the first and only conversation with a friend about a horse he is going to repo. I've never even thought about a horse before this.

Today, an ad populates a spot on MS casual games while playing freecell on my phone about a site with horses for sale.

jgrewe said:

So two days ago I have the first and only conversation with a friend about a horse he is going to repo. I've never even thought about a horse before this.

Today, an ad populates a spot on MS casual games while playing freecell on my phone about a site with horses for sale.

 

I don't have any accessory apps on my phone. I log into FB only occasionally, and always through their website. I limit access to microphone, camera and location tracking as much as possible. I use Amazon as sparingly as I can. I use a browser that's less intrusive and I clear my cache pretty much daily. I would rather not give them any more data than absolutely necessary.

That being said, they don't have to be listening for something like this to happen. If your buddy does a lot of searches for horse stuff, and they know that you two were together recently, they may be sending you horse adds just in case you like horses too.

In reply to The0retical (Forum Supporter) :

The reason this isn't brought up on some 1984 style group is that the results is advertising.  Most people think that's benign. 

IMHO, if people want things to happen over this, then bring it up to people who can actually haul FB's rear into a hearing.  Especially because they can also look into the claims on their own.  

What's interesting about this is that when you go through the process of not allowing directed ads by protecting your info, the software makes you feel pretty guilty- like lines of "this will reduce ads that are relevant to you, making it harder to .....".  As if that really matters.

It's a shame these devices aren't built with a way to turn them off completely when you're not using them. 

No one is listening! It's all math!

STM317 said:

jgrewe said:

So two days ago I have the first and only conversation with a friend about a horse he is going to repo. I've never even thought about a horse before this.

Today, an ad populates a spot on MS casual games while playing freecell on my phone about a site with horses for sale.

 

I don't have any accessory apps on my phone. I log into FB only occasionally, and always through their website. I limit access to microphone, camera and location tracking as much as possible. I use Amazon as sparingly as I can. I use a browser that's less intrusive and I clear my cache pretty much daily. I would rather not give them any more data than absolutely necessary.

That being said, they don't have to be listening for something like this to happen. If your buddy does a lot of searches for horse stuff, and they know that you two were together recently, they may be sending you horse adds just in case you like horses too.

I don't even use any of the media sites. You are reading this on one of the few forums I frequent. I have all kinds of blocking tech on my home network and laptop and I pretty much just use my phone as a phone. I even have all the FB bloatware on my phone disabled. 

I know someone, somewhere knows way more about me than I think they do because they have spent way more time thinking about ways to track my activities than I have spent thinking about how to avoid it. I just thought is was funny to see an ad for horses after reading this thread for the last few days.

I really think there are way too many cases of audio only (conversation, music, movie in background) with no other link that prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are listening.  Especially when the terms and conditions you agree to on apps give access to the microphone.

Serious Q.  Duck Duck Go is doing a ton of advertising boasting about not tracking you.  My guess is that's meaningless as while DDG may not track you, everything else on your devise is tracking what you are looking at on DDG.  Am I correct?

And damn, how do you permanently disable Siri on your phone?  I use voice to text a ton when texting, but that's it.  I don't search using speech, I don't ever want to just ask my phone a question.  I'm perfectly capable of opening Chrome and typing in '986 starter motor bolt torque', I don't need to ask the Kremlin in my pocket verbally.  Despite my efforts of silencing the spy she wont go away.  The other day on a TEAMS meeting for work she suddenly pipes up trying to answer a question that wasn't asked.

It's easy for people to say 'turn it off', but I'm not going full on Preper-tard-Kaczynski and live in the woods with no tech.  IT's a fact of life that for my job, and to be a decent husband, parent and grandparent I realistically need to have my phone on and with me most of the time. 

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

 

And damn, how do you permanently disable Siri on your phone?  I use voice to text a ton when texting, but that's it.  

I don’t use voice text, so no idea if this will disable it, but

Settings -> Siri & Search -> turn off all the sliders.

Almost every time I update, the phone asks if I want to enable Siri, but I just choose not to.

I work for a gigantic tech company. They are listening. 

I can't say anything else without breaching NDA/Confidentiality agreements I've signed. 

z31maniac said:

I work for a gigantic tech company. They are listening. 

I can't say anything else without breaching NDA/Confidentiality agreements I've signed. 

Law trumps NDA agreement, AFAIK.

This summer, the family was sitting (socially distanced, of course) around a campfire and mom and dad didn't believe that your phone listened to you, so we tried an experiment.  My BIL started talking loudly and deliberately about Tractor parts.

BIL: I've been looking for a good website that sells tractor parts
Me: Are you looking for parts for your John Deere tractor?
Sis:  Good tractor parts are hard to find.

etc.

I'm sure the other campers thought we were insane.

The next morning as I'm crawling out of my tent, i hear from inside mom and dad's trailer... "WHAT?!?!... Honey, come look at this!"  Sure enough, she had an ad for John Deere tractor parts, as did most of us. 4 iphones, one iPad, and 4 androids.  It doesn't discriminate.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

So, Curtis.  Don't be obtuse.  Do you think they're listening?

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Wonder how many of the other campers got ads also....

1988RedT2 said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

So, Curtis.  Don't be obtuse.  Do you think they're listening?

Either that, or mom sleep-googled John Deere parts.

lrrs said:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Wonder how many of the other campers got ads also....

Haaa.  We should have thought of something more inappropriate.  Blow-up dolls maybe?

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Blow up sheep. They exist. Don't ask.

eastsideTim said:

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

 

And damn, how do you permanently disable Siri on your phone?  I use voice to text a ton when texting, but that's it.  

I don’t use voice text, so no idea if this will disable it, but

Settings -> Siri & Search -> turn off all the sliders.

Almost every time I update, the phone asks if I want to enable Siri, but I just choose not to.

I don't think that works.  I think the permissions you agree to in the app will turn them back on for the duration the app is open.

There is not a human being listening. It's all math.

1100110001110000

It's very funny but I can't tell it correctly.

We had some fun tin foil hat discussions with this thread a couple of months ago, with some coming down on the side of yes they're listening and watching, others saying we  don't know what we're talking about.  Well here's another interesting one that's just occurred.  Facebook and Google are totally separate companies but I'm sure they are both looking at what I do on each others platforms.  Via email (gmail) only I've been talking about RV's, campers, towing etc. with another GRMer.  I've googled (on chrome) various things about Airstreams and mentioned them in these emails.  Never once have I looked for anything about airstream on FB and I never go to FB marketplace unless it's looking at an ad I've been sent or find on here.  Yet surprise surprise a few days after I start looking at info on Airstreams, FB is suddenly throwing lot's of Airstream stuff in my feed with 'You might be interested in' etc.  No other campers, just Airstream, and on Google I've only been looking at Airstream, not other campers.