Your phone is listening to you

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

Cipherr said:
Maybe these companies should stop tracking us to death, lol. I mean, its not our faults. The shit IS creepy as hell.

that would be the perfect solution, but you can do a lot if you actively try to not spread personal data.

leaving the facebook network (facebook, whatever, instagram) is not that hard, but leaving google is not easy (at least for me because google maps is probably the only reason I still got a smartphone).

but if you manage to leave google behind it's not that difficulat to minimize your footprint. got some family and friends who stopped using google alltogether (and try to block lots of Google trafic) and they don't really complain about targeted ads and so on.

Deleted member 54292 · Feb 2, 2020

okay those of you who understand tech better than I
1. wouldn't this kill the batteries really quick if your phone was always sending audio data?
2. are there ways to detect what kinda "information" is leaving a cellular device to know what info is going in/out?

MikeHattsu · Feb 2, 2020

Zaubrer said:
Maybe it's actually my CC. I just remembered that I just recently linked my CC to my Google account to pay for YT premium. However, it never knew companies could actually see WHAT you buy, only WHERE you buy.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/go...et-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales-in-us.65551/

efr · Feb 2, 2020

Cipherr said:
Maybe these companies should stop tracking us to death, lol. I mean, its not our faults. The shit IS creepy as hell.

Got a letter in the mail that two of my credit cards and my checking account bank share my purchase information with marketers to send me ads online somehow.
And yet, my bank cant figure out why I get locked out of the app every second time I use it. Capitalism sucks.

edit: see post above mine.
My banks disclosed that to me.

caff!!! · Feb 2, 2020

If it listened to me I'd have ads made for cats

Cipherr · Feb 2, 2020

MikeHattsu said:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/go...et-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales-in-us.65551/

efr said:
Got a letter in the mail that two of my credit cards and my checking account bank share my purchase information with marketers to send me ads online somehow.
And yet, my bank cant figure out why I get locked out of the app every second time I use it. Capitalism sucks.

edit: see post above mine.
My banks disclosed that to me.

Hoooly fuck... I didn't know this existed. How the hell is that legal and not something we need to opt in? Scummy as hell.

Shodan14 · Feb 2, 2020

Pikelet said:
We should be talking about actual privacy issues, not made up conspiracy theories like these that have no evidence whatsoever to support them. No, Facebook and Google are not wiretapping half the population of the world.

This.

sph3re · Feb 2, 2020

There are things I've texted to my girlfriend that I've seen ads for, so my first reaction is that companies are reading the shit you type on your mobile keyboard

Which is also equally horrifying

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

MikeHattsu said:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/go...et-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales-in-us.65551/

I'm not in the US but IIRC correctly a recently law in the EU somewhat allowed similar practices around here. It's not that invading (hopefully, haven't read the whole thing) but afaik companies can request information on where you spend money. A reason why I am on my way to close my PayPal account (as well as my current CC cause that thing recently got too expensive).

Anyway, it probably won't change for the better for the next 50 years I'm around so one probably better get ready for that kind of marketing.

If my country would support card payment on the same level as other countries I'd probably be paying a lot more with my card... and creating a lot more data as well hah.

Deleted member 16365 · Feb 2, 2020

I wish my phone was listening to me. It would help me remember stuff I'm supposed to pick up after work

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

sph3re said:
There are things I've texted to my girlfriend that I've seen ads for, so my first reaction is that companies are reading the shit you type on your mobile keyboard

Which is also equally horrifying

I mean that is a thing but theoretically that information should not be used for marketing but only for improving the service (at least that's what Apple says IIRC)

Caspah said:
I wish my phone was listening to me. It would help me remember stuff I'm supposed to pick up after work

try Siri/Google Assistant!

Unknownlight · Feb 2, 2020

The scary thing isn't that your phone is listening to you. That doesn't happen. The scary thing is that big data companies are able to figure this stuff out without listening to you.

Say you talked about a product with someone at work. Then you see a targeted ad for that product later. What happened here? Well, there are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is the person you talked to (or someone they talked to) looked it up, and therefore you got the ad because your phone was on the same Wi-Fi network / same GPS location as theirs.

Railgun · Feb 2, 2020

if your phone was constantly sending audio data, and constantly recording we'd know about it long before now. Tracking algorithms are incredibly complex and far more scary than it listening to you.

Why aren't nonsense conspiracy theory's like this that pop up non-stop banned?

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

Unknownlight said:
Say you talked about a product with someone at work. Then you see a targeted ad for that product later. What happened here? Well, there are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is the person you talked to (or someone they talked to) looked it up, and therefore you got the ad because your phone was on the same Wi-Fi network / same GPS location as theirs.

yeah that is very likely indeed. my phone is the only device in my network which is not connected through LAN... I really should try to change that. My data plan would actually allow me to be on cellular all the time.

LilZippa · Feb 2, 2020

Zaubrer said:
I know it's a common "misconception" and I am often on the side of people arguing "it's a coincidence" or "you are the target group based on the content you consume"... but in the last months I noticed a peculiar similarity about things I talk about (not even regarding myelf) and the stuff I get either recommended or ads on YouTube about.

The first was some health insurance thing about my girlfriend, although I got the ads for it on YouTube. Just now I received a recommendation about how Dr. Bronners soap is made. I am pretty sure that I never watched a video on body hygine on YouTube but I recently (three days ago) bought a Soap of that company because it was the first time I discovered it... today yesterday evening I told my girlfriend about that soap... now I am watching YouTube again and getting that video recommended...

Come on. Somebody tell me that it's all just imagination.

It's probably a location and product cross reference. They have a ad campaign and you were near a place that sells it.

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

Sometimes I wonder what it's worth that I have the ability to deactivate location tracking if companies still can somehow use that information

Deleted member 16365 · Feb 2, 2020

Zaubrer said:
I mean that is a thing but theoretically that information should not be used for marketing but only for improving the service (at least that's what Apple says IIRC)

try Siri/Google Assistant!

I'm getting mixed messages from you, OP

mAcOdIn · Feb 2, 2020

This is getting a little less conspiratorial. There was the what, Samsung or LG TV that was always listening? The Pixel 4 is always listening, for it to tell you what song is playing in the bakground at all times it has to be both listening and sending data back because I can assure you a Pixel 4 doesn't have the entire western discography digitized and stored locally on the phone, whether it sends other stuff is of course probably not true, assuming assistants are disabled and stuff like that.

But that is the clear progression of where they want to go. These assistants like Siri were probably a compromise, like, ok, we will listen but we wont actually listen and log the stuff unless you ask Siri because then it's no different than going to your search bar and typing it in and I'm sure it was the same idea for Google Assistant. I'm under no allusions that Google's putting a free Shazam in your phone, hiding it in the most illogical of places and makes it such an afterthought that even viewing what song is playing is a pain in the ass for it to be nothing but further training for it's listening capabilities. I'm sure the day Google thinks it can legally get away with just listening to everything 24/7 it will.

Deleted member 46948 · Feb 2, 2020

Zuckerberg is falling asleep listening to your phone calls every night.

Now you know.

Zaubrer · Feb 2, 2020

Caspah said:
I'm getting mixed messages from you, OP

It's certainly a leisure to use the whole range of digital services available to you, I believe. Getting notifications for you daily commute routes, to do's linked to location so you only get reminded when necessary... it's all great if you are willing to do that. Siri and Google Assistant are certainly able to do that (at least in connection to certain apps), but I am no user of those features. Still I am aware of them and if I should ever be in a position where I got no choice anymore (or feel like that) I will probably indulge into the leisure of digital assistants. Not yet though, I still feel comfortable trying to minimize my data leakage.

Vilix · Feb 2, 2020

It doesn't stop there, OP

You're so fucked. 😂

GreenMonkey · Feb 2, 2020

Unknownlight said:
The scary thing isn't that your phone is listening to you. That doesn't happen. The scary thing is that big data companies are able to figure this stuff out without listening to you.

Say you talked about a product with someone at work. Then you see a targeted ad for that product later. What happened here? Well, there are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is the person you talked to (or someone they talked to) looked it up, and therefore you got the ad because your phone was on the same Wi-Fi network / same GPS location as theirs.

This.

Someone you know has been googling it or looking at stuff about it. Geo-location data correlates them with you.

Big data doesn't need your audio data. And processing all that audio data and trying to text-to-speech all of it just to parse out some advertising? Expensive and not worth it.

Posted this in the last stupid thread about this.

https://slate.com/human-interest/20...than-target-guessing-that-youre-pregnant.html

. It was scary when a statistical model deployed by the guest marketing analytics team at Target correctly inferred based on purchasing data that one of its customers—sorry, guests—a teenage girl in Minnesota, was pregnant, based on an arcane formula involving elevated rates of buying unscented lotion, mineral supplements, and cotton balls. Target started sending her coupons for baby gear, much to the consternation of her father, who, with his puny human inferential power, was still in the dark. Spooky to contemplate, living in a world where Google and Facebook and your phone, and, geez, even Target, know more about you than your parents do.

krae_man · Feb 2, 2020

Prodigal Son said:
im saying penis over and over to my iphone until it helps

Born on the 4th of July, now available on 4k UHD Bluray ads incoming.

https://youtu.be/fA_AYhMHUis?t=72

Deleted member 41520 · Feb 2, 2020

Teh_Lurv said:
I've been meaning to make a thread about this topic for awhile now. I've also noticed the same thing happening with ads on my Android phone Chrome browser. The first time I noticed it was when I started getting browser ads for dental implants. I thought that was an odd coincidence as my mother at the time was getting a dental implant. I figured I must've searched for info on implants on my phone, forgot about it, and the ads were going off a cookie or something. The next time I recall was when I was getting nothing but ads for art.com and the like. I was helping my mother redecorate the walls of the living room/reading room around the same time. I am positive I never used my phone to visit any of those sites or do anything that would indicate I was interested in artwork. I'm the only person who uses my cellphone and no one else shares my Google account.

The AI doesn't just follow you, it follows everyone around you individually and connects that to you. If your mother has been texting others as well as you about getting implants or redecorating, her and all her close WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram
/Gmail associates will start getting the targeting too. Like you

Irnbru · Feb 2, 2020

Zaubrer said:
One would wonder how Google actually figured out I bought that soap. The only explanation I have is that I word by word read what was writting all over the package lol Otherwise it could have been any soap. I mean I never heard of that brand until two days ago heh

Your name is attached to your account in one way or another which is then attached to your CC, of which every single purchase is being sold as data to ad companies. Congrats, I solved your problem.

It's too expensive from a processing perspective to translate what you say over the phone into usable data at scale, especially when they already own all the other data around you and is far more powerful than text data gathered from you directly.

PunchyMalone · Feb 2, 2020

I was in a store and overheard two dudes talk about something called Vangard. It stuck out because I'm not used to hearing that word in a real world context, but when I got home, the first ad was for Vangard. Some investment firm or something. Confirmation bias and all that, but that was so on the nose, I can't help but notice.

robox · Feb 2, 2020

Unknownlight said:
The scary thing isn't that your phone is listening to you. That doesn't happen. The scary thing is that big data companies are able to figure this stuff out without listening to you.

Say you talked about a product with someone at work. Then you see a targeted ad for that product later. What happened here? Well, there are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is the person you talked to (or someone they talked to) looked it up, and therefore you got the ad because your phone was on the same Wi-Fi network / same GPS location as theirs.

these are times when a post like this needs to be upvoted above all the snarky replies and get some common sense closure on a subject.

Ambient80 · Feb 2, 2020

Your phone listening in on stuff, sending it somewhere to be processed, then serving you ads is probably the most inefficient way to do that, aside from asking you to personally call Google or whomever and give them the info directly. Multiple, MULTIPLE studies have shown this isn't happening.

BAD · Feb 2, 2020

People never think others on their network are doing searches. It must be illegal surveillance by companies.

WhiteRabbitEXE · Feb 2, 2020

Username1198 said:
It's the reason why I'm never on my phone when I take a shit. I don't want the feds to know I'm taking a shit.

"They're off the phone again, definitely taking a shit"

Teh_Lurv · Feb 2, 2020

Jiminy said:
The AI doesn't just follow you, it follows everyone around you individually and connects that to you. If your mother has been texting others as well as you about getting implants or redecorating, her and all her close WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram
/Gmail associates will start getting the targeting too. Like you

Yeah, reading this thread the explanation someone mentioned of google tracking by same IP addresses sounds plausible.

sph3re · Feb 2, 2020

Zaubrer said:
I mean that is a thing but theoretically that information should not be used for marketing but only for improving the service (at least that's what Apple says IIRC)

Theoretically.

4 Get! · Feb 2, 2020

Unknownlight said:
The scary thing isn't that your phone is listening to you. That doesn't happen. The scary thing is that big data companies are able to figure this stuff out without listening to you.

Say you talked about a product with someone at work. Then you see a targeted ad for that product later. What happened here? Well, there are a lot of possibilities, but a common one is the person you talked to (or someone they talked to) looked it up, and therefore you got the ad because your phone was on the same Wi-Fi network / same GPS location as theirs.

If this is how it actually happens, it explains a lot. I don't mind targeted ads. I actually want these companies to do better with targeted ads, because I want to know things like 'shows similar to Breaking Bad or Barry' or 'specific furniture that helps with what I'm missing at my residence'. Instead what happens is that I visit an old friend for just one day, who I haven't seen in months, they have cats, and I end up getting cat food and cat litter product ads when I don't give a shit about cats nor do I own cats. So right now from my perspective, these companies are failing when it comes to giving me ads I actually care about.

Deleted member 33319 · Feb 2, 2020

Genuinely surprised people in this thread don't realize apps that you give mic access do this.
It's a pretty well known thing too.

skeptem · Feb 2, 2020

Pikelet said:
We should be talking about actual privacy issues, not made up conspiracy theories like these that have no evidence whatsoever to support them. No, Facebook and Google are not wiretapping half the population of the world.

this 1000%

The more people focus on conspiracy theories that they feel they have no control over, the more they disregard the reality of companies profiting off their information in much more obvious ways.

Use VPNs, block trackers, block 3rd party scripts, etc...

azeke · Feb 3, 2020

ty_hot · Feb 3, 2020

One possibility is they didnt sell in your area - reason why you never found it - but now they do and they are running ads based on geo location... there are so many ways that ad could have landed on your video and listening to the microphone is the least efficient one.

Christor · Feb 3, 2020

It's obvious it does. My gf and I talked about marriage and the first ads I saw were about wedding rings.

Deleted member 15737 · Feb 3, 2020

Zaubrer said:
One would wonder how Google actually figured out I bought that soap. The only explanation I have is that I word by word read what was writting all over the package lol Otherwise it could have been any soap. I mean I never heard of that brand until two days ago heh

How many ads you see in a day?

I think a lot of these fall in the same case as "new word phenomenon." Learn a new word and then you start hearing it more frequently. You may have skimmed past a soap ad without ever taking a second glance. But when its fresh in your mind your brain recognizes it and lights up.

I'm sure theres a real term for it.

Kenstar · Feb 3, 2020

if they somehow listened in on you and sent ads because of that you wouldn't have one weird story about it, it'd be a common ass thing like how all of our youtube recs get screwy if you watch one too many of a certain category of videos

Unicorn · Feb 3, 2020

Badcoo said:
One theory is that the AI they use to market these things are so good that they know what you want before you want it.

There was some independent study that came out about phone's listening to you and they couldn't find any evidence that they are.

Unfortunately this is most likely, but in my bug brain this isn't much different than just giving the conceit that our phones (devices) are listening to us. Direct audio or not, they are scrubbing our habits and trends and are able to narrow down probabilities and advertise to us.

Deleted member 5745 · Feb 3, 2020

At least someone is.

More_Badass · Feb 3, 2020

Zaubrer said:
One would wonder how Google actually figured out I bought that soap. The only explanation I have is that I word by word read what was writting all over the package lol Otherwise it could have been any soap. I mean I never heard of that brand until two days ago heh

If you put stuff in your cart, data's being tracked to retarget you for ads related to those products.

mAcOdIn · Feb 3, 2020

Kenstar said:
if they somehow listened in on you and sent ads because of that you wouldn't have one weird story about it, it'd be a common ass thing like how all of our youtube recs get screwy if you watch one too many of a certain category of videos

This is true. It's one thing for a device to listen and even recognize words spoken aloud, it's a totally different thing altogether for it to pick out the correct subject of a conversation and give you an ad.

Recommendations would be insane and all over the place with products and services with the correct name but in hilariously different markets and shit.

I think some models are listening but I think they're also truthful, for now, over what data they actually use. With as many people as it must take to pore over Siri and Alexa data the idea that someone would pore over not only every specific inquiry but every conversation within range of your phone is insane. For now.

MoonsaultSlayer · Feb 3, 2020

I thought this was already proven.

Hell just yesterday, I asked my brother if he'd tune my son's guitar and he corrected me saying "ukelele? I don't know if I can." and later his iOS store had an app for a ukelele tuner suggested.

Quantum Leap · Feb 3, 2020

MoonsaultSlayer said:
I thought this was already proven.

Hell just yesterday, I asked my brother if he'd tune my son's guitar and he corrected me saying "ukelele? I don't know if I can." and later his iOS store had an app for a ukelele tuner suggested.

It's just a coincidence. I'm getting Valentine's app suggestions and I'm lonely as fuck.

It's just The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Nabs · Feb 3, 2020

Dilute, Dilute, Dilute.

MoonsaultSlayer · Feb 3, 2020

Jzeero said:
It's just a coincidence. I'm getting Valentine's app suggestions and I'm lonely as fuck.

It really isn't. Happens way too often. Like another friend of mine asking about roof racks for a camping trip and I getting roof rack ads on neogaf back in the day.

phonicjoy · Feb 3, 2020

Teh_Lurv said:
I've been meaning to make a thread about this topic for awhile now. I've also noticed the same thing happening with ads on my Android phone Chrome browser. The first time I noticed it was when I started getting browser ads for dental implants. I thought that was an odd coincidence as my mother at the time was getting a dental implant. I figured I must've searched for info on implants on my phone, forgot about it, and the ads were going off a cookie or something. The next time I recall was when I was getting nothing but ads for art.com and the like. I was helping my mother redecorate the walls of the living room/reading room around the same time. I am positive I never used my phone to visit any of those sites or do anything that would indicate I was interested in artwork. I'm the only person who uses my cellphone and no one else shares my Google account.

they know you're related and live at the same IP, your mom could've googled that.

Kenstar · Feb 3, 2020

wow all these convincing anecdotes
you guys should factory reset your phone and record a vid of you talking near it and getting relevant ads
those dozens of failed attempts to prove this on youtube prove there is a demand, you'll be rich off the views alone much less the news interviews and the movie about the one ordinary guy who blew this whole thing wide open

Your phone is listening to you

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