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Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

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Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#61

Post by Lordarminius »

txsh wrote: post #11

This was happening to me until I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone. I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.

> I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.

I have evidence of same and it may not be just FB and Messanger

Last week a co-worker engaged me in a discussion concerning her father-in-laws diagnosis of prostate cancer. This lasted about 20 or 30 minutes. I had my cell phone on me. I do not have FB or Messanger.

I do not deal with cancer cases at work. I did not google any information on prostate cancer. I did not send any mails pertaining to prostate cancer or any other form of cancer.

Two days later I start getting ads and suggestions for prostate cancer treatment options. How unlikely should that be?

I am trying to reproduce the effect by talking about other rare disease conditions with my phone switched on.

If the bugger is spying on me I'd like to know.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#62

Post by eip »

yish wrote: post #13

Did either one of you login to amazon, Facebook, google, etc on one of the other persons device? If so there is likely still a tracking cookie associating you with her device. And your searches are causing her device to be targeted.

You are logged in to Android phones all the time. Not that it matters since they know who owns the phone.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#63

Post by eip »

adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

> they will show ads on her devices based on your behavior (and vice versa).

She went house hunting and watched kung fu movies. Has nothing to do with the partners behavior.

Most android (CIAlphabet) phones have CIABook installed by default and it cannot be turned off or deleted without root access. Both listen to microphone and probably take random photos. The phones are both linked to credit cards which are probably also linked to Netflix account.

Why are people still surprised by this?

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#64

Post by poulsbohemian »

Lordarminius wrote: post #61
txsh wrote: post #11

This was happening to me until I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone. I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.

> I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this. I have evidence of same and it may not be just FB and Messanger Last week a co-worker engaged me in a discussion concerning her father-in-laws diagnosis of prostate cancer. This lasted about 20 or 30 minutes. I had my cell phone on me. I do not have FB or Messanger. I do not deal with cancer cases at work…

What kind of phone? The rest of us might want to get in on this test too.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#65

Post by cdelsolar »

goshx wrote: post #48
kazinator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a well-known psychological phenomenon, not a joke or coincidence.

I understand that. I just don't think it applies to this case. It happened to me and close friends, that's why I am skeptical. It is very easy to have opinions and explanations on something you didn't experience yourself.

This phenomenon happens to me and close friends too.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#66

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

Makes sense, especially since I think the IP for multiple devices on a home broadband connection would be the external IP of the broadband router, right?

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#67

Post by johnward »

Lordarminius wrote: post #61
txsh wrote: post #11

This was happening to me until I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone. I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.

> I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this. I have evidence of same and it may not be just FB and Messanger Last week a co-worker engaged me in a discussion concerning her father-in-laws diagnosis of prostate cancer. This lasted about 20 or 30 minutes. I had my cell phone on me. I do not have FB or Messanger. I do not deal with cancer cases at work…

I have absolutely no proof but I swear this happens to me and my wife all the time. We just talk about things then end up seeing ads for them. I'm on android and she is on iOS.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#68

Post by vokep »

philwelch wrote: post #57
adtechperson wrote: post #24

I have worked for a number of ad tech companies over the years. If this really is happening (and it seems possible it could be coincidence) the most likely explanation is cross device targeting using IP address. So, most ad tech companies do cross device targeting, using device maps bought from other companies (Drawbridge being one). These companies attempt to assign a variety of devices from the same person to a sin…

That has some super creepy implications--imagine the father of a teenage girl wondering why he's suddenly seeing so many internet ads for maternity products, for instance.

Can't find it atm but there was at least one story of someone being outed as gay due to ad targeting. For things like that, if you can think of it it probably already has happened, and if it hasn't, it will in the next 10 years.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#69

Post by vokep »

Since the video of the guy talking about dog toys with chrome closed, and then seeing dog toy ads shortly after, I've become skeptical of this. So, I've begun testing it myself. I thought of something somewhat specific but random, unrelated to me, unlikely for me to see regular ads for, and now from time to time I talk about that thing. Until maybe a few weeks from now when I stop doing this, I will not be typing the thing, or anything too closely related, into any kind of text field.

I've been doing it a few days so far and nothing yet.

Re: Ask HN: Girlfriend is being shown ads depending on what we do together. How?

#70

Post by vokep »

dingaling wrote: post #43
txsh wrote: post #11

This was happening to me until I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone. I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.

Say that only half of Facebook's users have the apps: one billion Say that the average within-microphone-range presence of each user is five hours per day. Probably a huge underestimate. Do you really think that Facebook would devote enough server time to parse five billion hours of mumbling audio each and every day? That's several times longer than the total viewing of YouTube each day.

its not that expensive, the transfer of raw audio to the server would probably be a bigger problem to deal with. Likely the processing is done on the phone. Either way its not cool, using YOUR data or battery to do their processing to target you with ads.

Its likely a passive listening for keywords kind of thing.

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