Are you sure that you have not done some online research regarding Voltaren, either before or after purchase?
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Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
351–360 of 494 posts
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#352I've heard stories like this multiple times. Both on Android and iPhone. I don't believe it's a coincidence. The chemist is probably sharing the time of purchase along with items bought with Google, FB (probably indirectly but data gets there). These services probably have access to your location, either via your phone or via network provider. They try to match. If the likelihood is high enough (e.g. chemist had few customers at that time), show ad.
It's possible they match using location but they might have other data that increases the matching like payment provider which has a lot of your personal data as well as knows your purchased something from that store at that time.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it that no such scandal has been uncovered? Surely by now some hacker would have been able to prove that a phone is recording, sending to server, processing, and returning relevant ad. Or surely someone would have come forward or whistle blown by now. So I'll quote Hitchen's razor for you: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
Many have tried. Steve Gibson (of GRC fame) did some wiresharking around one of his Amazon devices and found no abnormal networking traffic when he was talking to it, vs not.
Alexa devices have been extensively and repeatedly shown to not be "passively listening".
The same cannot be said for phone apps.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or replace your phone with a one you can trust (Linux phone).
You still can’t trust the baseband blob which has DMA access on most devices.
These two devices do not have DMA access (and also have killswitches): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if it fits with what the poster you replied to was saying but I find it a bit curious when I buy say a guitar on Amazon and my recommendations (emails or ads in other sites) over the next few days are still guitars. I do not remember seeing one of those promotions which follow a purchase being about accessories or add-ons.
I dunno, I’ve bought several guitars in a row…
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Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think Google linked the account directly to the purchase. My guess would be that Google linked the account to the medication based on patterns from one of its many ways it gathers data. * visits to websites about that medication * visits to websites talking about symptoms for which the medication helps * searches for the above * I would not be surprised if Google picks up interests from other accounts using t…
I think it's the last option. His phone probably heard him ordering Voltaren. It's also the simplest possibility (Ockham's razor). I know because after discussing extremely rare chemicals at an officemate's desk, he began seeing ads for them. Neither of us had ever Googled or emailed anything related. It was a brand new idea for a brand new project which we had started working on that morning.
This is not the simplest possibility. Based on how often Google Home misunderstands the simplest queries, the tech is nowhere close to getting purchase intents out of random conversations. Besides that - do folks on hn really believe the „our phones are listening 24/7“ conspiracy theories?
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#357Not coincidence. Not "bank purchase history" shared with google- in most cases banks and credit cards don't know item level detail. Lots of ways this data flow could happen, at least in the US. Happy to go through specific details I have seen if you want to share more about this, but two high level points 1. Remember that when you purchase something, the data about the purchase is BOTH yours AND the entity from whom…
In the US, you can’t use personal health information for marketing purposes. If you can prove this link, a lot of very large organizations could potentially be in serious trouble for HIPAA violations. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance...
The shop part (non-pharmacy) of a chemist isn’t a covered entity though right, so hipaa isn’t relevant at all?
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#358March 2020, heydays of coronavirus paranoia. I came back home from somewhere, put my keys onto the dining table and went to the bathroom to clean up. My girlfriend, upon seeing the key-chain on the table started reproaching me for being careless about hygiene. When I returned from the bathroom I saw her washing the key-chain in the kitchen sink. This time I got angry and asked how come she hadn't thought that the usb…
As a response to those who asked questions here in the comments: When I finally overcame the shock, the very first thing I did was to ask her if she, or a guest, indeed searched for, or otherwise "input" anything related to usb-sticks or water-proofness into a computer system. The answer was no. I don't know what to make of it. I don't want to succumb to conspiracy theories of the sort that ambient sound is recorded…
An explanation would be that, in the beginning of Covid, your scenario (needing washable USB sticks) happened to many many people.
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's the last option. His phone probably heard him ordering Voltaren. It's also the simplest possibility (Ockham's razor). I know because after discussing extremely rare chemicals at an officemate's desk, he began seeing ads for them. Neither of us had ever Googled or emailed anything related. It was a brand new idea for a brand new project which we had started working on that morning.
This is not the simplest possibility. Based on how often Google Home misunderstands the simplest queries, the tech is nowhere close to getting purchase intents out of random conversations. Besides that - do folks on hn really believe the „our phones are listening 24/7“ conspiracy theories?
I scrolled down further in the thread and it seems they do...
Re: Ask HN: I bought Voltaren at the chemist, now Google shows me ads for it. Why?
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, though this is an excellent story, this is just an example of a bias known as "frequency illusion". It happens with a lot of things, like seeing the clock at 11:11 more than you do at 11:09. Or seeing lots of your make/model car but being blind to the hundred of other variants on the road. How many times have you opened up your laptop and not seen a Facebook add for something you just did, or something…
I understand you have used Occam's razor to come to this conclusion. And its a perfectly valid point. But, this particular story has been repeated so many times around me that I am genuinely suspicious. But alas, the only way to know would be to look at the code. And even then we might not understand because its a blackbox type system which is ill understood by even its designers.
Why would Google be recording your mic and using it for ads where they would just be caught for doing it? I mean it's completely possible. But more likely just confirmation bias. Speaking of Occam's razor, we should just dump modern "technology" (smart phones, smart TVs, the web, IoT, even feature phones were no good).
There's actually nothing hard about the concept of a mobile phone, it's just a computer (or could even be a simple PCB) with a mic and speaker. No need for "secret sauce" standards such that nobody can tell if it's secure (I mean it isn't, the bugs just get patched every week, day, nanosecond, whatever). Hell, you can even make a completely open and simple (even more important than open) phone communication standard and charge 1 billion people tens of dollars per month to use your network and become the richest person on earth.
edit: I mean facebook, or whatever (also facebook would have to gain access to the mic [maybe facebook has mic permission i guess, i am unfamiliar with smart phones])