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We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny. I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmo…
It would have been nice to see the author address that possibility, but it seems fingerprinting is not mentioned.
I wonder if it's a fingerprinting attempt gone wrong? I can't see a reasonable even malicious reason for eavesdropping on mic/camera at scale like that, you'll be capturing a ton of data you need to manually process/clean up which takes time/resources, most people won't stay on the page long enough to capture enough sensitive info and even then, eavesdropped conversations seem pretty useless unless you also have the…
Keywords (i.e. "perfume", "car", "phone", "notebook", "flowers", whatever) would probably be enough to "improve" targeted ads.
However, this would be a huge scandal if true, so your first suggestion, fingerprinting gone wrong, is more likely.
We have a chance to notice this when it's mediated by a browser. Native apps don't barf all over the console and thus escape such scrutiny. I first considered this when a friend told me about a brand of lawnmower of which I had never heard let alone searched (mowing lawns is the least interesting activity I can imagine), and one minute later a podcast app had a big banner at the top by which I could purchase a lawnmo…
Has anyone seen any well done research showing these effects?
Although I wouldn't be shocked at all if mics were being used. I just feel like that would have been leaked by someone by now.
Is this just click bait? I don't know the intricacies of Google's ad serving, but is this not just someone (e.g., an ads customer) slipping a request for camera and mic access into an ad script? But the title seems to suggest Google is doing something malicious here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has anyone seen any well done research showing these effects?
I've heard it from more folks than I'd like to. And counting them all as crazy or paranoid is less believable than the alternative.