I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone • Hacker News Board

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#201

Post by MrMcCall » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #101

MrMcCall wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world. Occam's Razor and the answer to the question, "What kinds of companies are at work in the environment?" push that probability in a specific way, because the motives and means are definitely there. Do you think they are the kinds of companies that would waste such an opportunity? Their Chief Councel's recomme…

>Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world. This is absurd. The chances of rolling snake eyes twice in a row is 0.07%. However, that doesn't mean if I do get snake eyes back to back, I should think it's caused by "Technilogical causes" (aliens? CIA remotely controlling the dice?). At best, it's an incomplete argument. The power of the birthday parado…

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Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#202

Post by brookst » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

Suppafly wrote: post #137

wakawaka28 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So how does the phone + ad networks decide which words to prioritize to trigger which ads when? The same way they analyze your email and web searches. Basically, statistics. >To me this is the problem with these anecdotal tests. You understood that that was an important phrase in the context of ad targeting. But how did the automated ad system know it should serve you ads on that topic, and not one of the many other…

>We know from leaks, reverse-engineering, and personal experience that this spying is going on. No we don't. There isn't any of that. This is flat earthing for technophiles.

Good analogy. Just like anyone with a lick of sense can see the spherical Earth from an airplane, so can anyone see the absence of this network traffic from any network analyzer. It’s not there. It does not exist.

And nevermind the conspiratorial thinking required to believe whole teams of engineers are developing and maintaining this capability across several giant companies, but nobody ever puts it on a resume. Apparently the thousands of people working on this are all personally committed to complete secrecy, forever. Uh-uh.

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#203

Post by fhueller » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 2:55 PM UTC

alvah wrote: post #29

Every 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 b…

> Every time I read some technical description about why this isn't happening, the technical description seems convincing.

Having knowledge of the technical limitations and challenges myself, I used to be on board for this argument, but now less so.

All of the technical arguments against the listening seem to ignore the "Ok, " or "Hello, " initiating phrases for the voluntary surveillance devices people put in their rooms, and offer only a worst case defense ~"how could they process everything everyone is saying?!"

Why is it such a stretch to imagine these devices grab Direct Objects and Subjects and store those singular items for ad keywording?

We have cookies and know how they work, why is it difficult to extrapolate?

simonw is a breathless proselytizer of LLMs and likely is suffering from "a man's salary depending on misunderstanding" and all that.

It bears repeating, "these corpos are raising billions and hiring former alphabet heads to their boards for reasons other than just making you a better programming assistant."

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#204

Post by wrsh07 » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:00 PM UTC

alvah wrote: post #192

darknavi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they pick a swimming pool? Did they see people in their area installing pools? I think that's often people's best guess, is that the "random" thing people use to test this actually isn't random and subconsciously they already had this topic seeded to them.

No, they deliberately chose a topic they had absolutely no interest in, to try and avoid confirmation bias. It’s not impossible that what you describe is actually what happened to an extent though, a lot of the recommendations and ads on FB do seem to have a “what people around you / in your network like” factor.

You also need to do the opposite experiment Have two people put their phones in the microwave (don't run it!) / turn them off, discuss swimming pools (or jacuzzis etc), and see if you suddenly start seeing ads for said thing. And then you would have to repeat this experiment several times to rule out outliers

Experiment design is important! I completely believe that this happened to your friends and I also don't think it means what you/they think it does

(That is: you need to completely isolate yourself; music practice room on a college campus where nobody is wearing a watch or phone and repeat the experiment. If it turns out that you still see ads for that thing, then the experiment didn't prove anything)

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#205

Post by simonw » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

sixhobbits wrote: post #173

7e wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phone can listen for “hey Google” because it’s only one phrase and the model can run at very low power on specialized hardware. If you want to add 1000 keywords the battery drain would be intense.

Pixel phones run song identification constantly now. They have a local database of the top 1000 (?) most popular songs. It has negligible impact on battery life. Not saying I agree that 'phones are listening to show us ads', but technically we have the capability for that to happen (sampling audio every X intervals and matching against a local database of keywords)

These conspiracy theories have been floating around since long before any of this became practical.

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#206

Post by wakawaka28 » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:15 PM UTC

a0123 wrote: post #199

wakawaka28 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple settled because they knew they would lose. Winning is good PR since they (falsely) claim to be favorable for privacy. They are only superficially better than Google in that regard. I did skim your article and it's not as bad as I thought. I think you really mean it when you say these are just coincidences. But they're not. Another one I forgot to mention: Google explicitly tracks your location history unless yo…

I hate corporations as much as the next guy (probably more than the next guy) but the argument that "it wasn't proven they were doing it which proves they were doing it" is probably the worst one you could have come up with tbh.

That case dragged on for 5 years, and ended up with them paying $95 million anyway. I think if they could have proved that they weren't doing it, they would have. Maybe I didn't say that clearly but it makes a lot of sense.

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#207

Post by simonw » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:15 PM UTC

siliconpotato wrote: post #188

simonw wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're specifically talking about Apple here, based on Siri wake words. Do you think Apple are running this kind ad of targeting?

why are you limiting your argument to wake words? It's comparatively trivial to serve ads based upon what's spoken after the wake word. And as we know from the lawsuit, it seems that there's been a lot of data gathered accidentally too.

The story here is about Apple paying a settlement because Siri was sending audio snippets surrounding invalid wake word activations back to their servers without users realizing it.

In the story, there was an implication that these audio snippets had been used for targeted ads. This is very clearly not true.

A separate issue is whether Apple take audio from opt-in full hey Siri sessions and sell that advertisers for targeting.

I very much doubt they do that, but even if they did that shouldn't be part of the "your phone is secretly spying on you through your microphone" conspiracy theory because of course your phone is listening to you if you just said "hey Siri" and started talking to it.

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#208

Post by simonw » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:17 PM UTC

on_the_train wrote: post #189

They do. They absolutely do. Not a week goes by without a blatant case on my phone. I'd wager everything I own on this.

What evidence would you accept that they're not doing this in a way that would make this an actionable bet?

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#209

Post by simonw » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:21 PM UTC

MrMcCall wrote: post #201

gruez wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world. This is absurd. The chances of rolling snake eyes twice in a row is 0.07%. However, that doesn't mean if I do get snake eyes back to back, I should think it's caused by "Technilogical causes" (aliens? CIA remotely controlling the dice?). At best, it's an incomplete argument. The power of the birthday parado…

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If you read my article I quote that exact paragraph, and then call out the Ars Technica reporter for the way they misleadingly rephrased this similar paragraph from the Reuters report that Ars Technica cite as their source:

> One Siri user said his private discussions with his doctor about a “brand name surgical treatment” caused him to receive targeted ads for that treatment, while two others said their discussions about Air Jordan sneakers, Pit Viper sunglasses and “Olive Garden” caused them to receive ads for those products.

The whole point of my article is that these random claims that were part of the original lawsuit in 2021 are being mindlessly quoted as if they are proven facts, when they are not. Here's my link again: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/2/they-spy-on-you-but-not...

Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone

#210

Post by wakawaka28 » Fri, Jan 03, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #202

Suppafly wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We know from leaks, reverse-engineering, and personal experience that this spying is going on. No we don't. There isn't any of that. This is flat earthing for technophiles.

Good analogy. Just like anyone with a lick of sense can see the spherical Earth from an airplane, so can anyone see the absence of this network traffic from any network analyzer. It’s not there. It does not exist. And nevermind the conspiratorial thinking required to believe whole teams of engineers are developing and maintaining this capability across several giant companies, but nobody ever puts it on a resume. App…

>And nevermind the conspiratorial thinking required to believe whole teams of engineers are developing and maintaining this capability across several giant companies, but nobody ever puts it on a resume. Apparently the thousands of people working on this are all personally committed to complete secrecy, forever. Uh-uh.

Bro it doesn't matter how much evidence you provide people with that this IS happening. They usually won't accept it. If they do accept it, half the time they shrug it off with "I've got nothing to hide anyway" kind of cope.

I seriously think I'm arguing with employees of these companies on HN because all you people do is deny everything and smear people who talk about this stuff. I hate to break it to you, but conspiracies are real. Noticing that people are conspiring to do things that nobody likes is not unreasonable in any way.