Well clearly HN is listening to my phone because I literally had this exact debate several times last week!
I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
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Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#22We search for everything we talk about these days…our location services are always on. The times I’ve noticed this I can usually trace it back to a friend had been searching for something and then we (our phones) were in the same place. Even the guy from the lawsuit with the doctor… his phone knows he was at that doctor and that doctor offers that procedure. Seems possible without listening.
I keep location services off, but realize that’s probably not completely hiding my location.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#23I've noticed people often research products, services, medical issues/ailments, etc. using Google (or similar). When they start seeing related ads on social media, they tend to attribute more to having discussed the topic out loud, forgetting about the searches they made from the same device or IP address.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#24I suspect that it is emergent behavior that even the ad companies themselves aren't aware of.
I have definitely experienced it myself, and have no doubts that it happens.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Show me some sniffed network traffic demonstrating an app sending that data back to a server. Discovery in a lawsuit. Credible insider leaks confirming this happens and how.
How about a pitch deck for a company [1] claiming it can offer microphone eavesdropping based ad targeting [2]? Maybe that was still aspirational though. TVs and cars have microphones now and are privacy nightmares. Car companies have patents [3] for in-car keyword based ad targeting. Without legalisation, it's really only a matter of time. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90999277/cox-cmg-active-listenin... https://w…
I think it's still aspirational. If it was as wide spread as people think, someone would have shown a packet capture or an whistleblower would have come forward.
That said, I full agree that unless we legislate it, it will happen eventually.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#26My experience working at one of the companies that gets accused of this a lot is that many colleagues wish we were as evil as claimed because it would be so much easier do their jobs that way than struggling through the reality of it which is endless red tape over the tiniest issues that have even the slightest proximity to privacy. So I've been a bit skeptical too.
Yup - having worked at Google Display Ads (arguably the epicenter of such talk), I personally only ever witnessed people walking the walk, privacy-wise. The threats to our privacy are quite public and not at all illegal; IMO data brokers and 3P browser trackers are at the top of the list, but all of Google’s known ills are there too (location tracking, exchange monopolization, allowing predatory advertisers, gestures…
I'm not trying to change your mind, but this response (from another user) was flagged, so I'm providing a pull quote.
> A marketing firm called Cox Media Group has recently revealed that it is listening to user conversations via their smartphones through its so-called "Active Listening" Software. With this, the company will push advertisements that users will see on certain platforms based on the heard conversations as unveiled by a report.
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/307372/20240904/cox-media...
Is techtimes.com junk?
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#27They don't need to: they can read your mind.
My proof? Yesterday I was driving home and I saw an old Toyota Previa minivan and thought to myself "Oh, a Previa, you don't see those very often these days." When I got home, I started scrolling through my Google News and it showed me an advert for the new Previa.
I agree with Simon: you basically aren't going to convince someone that their phone doesn't listen to you and serve you adverts based on it, because they've run into instances where it seems like it.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#28Reuters journalist Jon Stempel repeated the plaintiffs' paranoid and unsubstantiated allegations but did not include a single statement from Apple, just a vacant "did not immediately respond". If only there were years of statements made under oath in the courts to draw from.
Siri uses a pseudonymous identifier when communicating with Apple's services. The identifier is not linked to your Apple ID. Therefore Siri does not have access to your iCloud data. When you ask Siri to "call mom", it constructs a search query which is then executed on-device against your contacts database.
More of these requests are served entirely on-device. Just ask: how is that consistent with the idea that they are doing ad targeting based on Siri requests?
You can request a data export for your Apple account and see that there's no Siri data included in it. If they are caught lying, EU regulators will have a field day.
Apple describes their ad targeting here. They list the—frankly boring—signals they use for ad personalization, which does not include anything you say to Siri or have in your personal iCloud data. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin...
No one is apologizing for Apple's nontransparent collection of Siri audio for QA purposes, which is what they settled over and made opt-in.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#29Every time I read some technical description about why this isn't happening, the technical description seems convincing.
However...
A friend tested the theory a few years ago. He doesn't own a swimming pool, doesn't want to, and has never expressed any desire to. He put his and his wife's phone on the table and said to the wife (loudly), "Why don't we look into pool fencing?". She agreed with him. Shortly after, on both of their phones, on a particular social network, they were inundated with ads for....pool fencing.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#30> ...they would need to be feeding those snippets in almost real time into a system which forwards them onto advertising partners who then feed that information into targeting networks... I think this is totally mistaken. An ad seller which also wants to respect privacy keeps this data in-house and does the ad targeting themselves. The advertiser never needs to see personal information for this kind of market to give…
I mean, many advertisers go through the Google display network without having Google target their ads (AKA run their bidding algorithms). Typically they go through other middlemen agencies, who indeed would need at least some of this data to make use of it, tho perhaps in some derivative form.
Still, you’re right that Google could be keeping it all for themselves and feeding it to their black box targeting services. I really strongly doubt that’s happening with incidental assistant snippets much less intentionally-eavesdropped recordings, but it is more plausible than this makes it seem.