people surf the net so automatically that they forget they are doing it and blame Alexa for snooping.
I do recall reading the Alex engineers insisting on a physical off switch while the opposite was true for the Google Home product.
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
#32I set my iPhone language to Italian and now I’m getting non-stop ads for Olive Garden.
What is the correlation? Olive Garden has nothing to do with anything Italian.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#33The assumption is that it's either widespread or nonexistent, but I could see it being just a rare instance that gets A/B tested, and maybe by now the companies have decided it's not worth it. But IME all kinds of not quite kosher stuff gets A/B tested, and that would line up with anecdotes where it's too specific to be coincidence, but also uncommon and only affecting certain people.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#34We 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.
Yes, but I think that's the part that feels... unsettling.
I watched a Nigerian film on the seat back display on the plane the other day. I looked it up on my laptop when I got home because I didn't finish it.
The next day in my Instagram explore page I had a Nigerian meme...
Yes, I get it -- could be frequency illusion or some IP address/cookie shenanigans. Still feels weird.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#35I have successfully argued this for at least a certain class of devices. Namely, it practically can't happen _for small devices_. e.g., a TV remote with a voice feature activated by a button simply won't have enough _power_ to constantly be listening, uploading, or processing. Harder to convince folks that _nothing_ does this, but takes an edge off their more paranoid tendencies.
I personally don't believe any argument that says it's not feasible.
Transcribing all spoken text and sending it home, sure, not feasible.
What if we have 256 keywords, or 65536 keywords, maybe preconfigured for particular products or product classes. Some basic linear predictive coding mechanism ( you know, what powered those '80s chips Stephen Hawking style, speak and spell, etc) - very very low computational overhead. When the word is triggered, queue a message back home at the next reasonable opportunity - user id, timestamp, word. It will only take a couple bytes. It can be slipped in anywhere and obfuscated by any means by nature of being so small, data-wise, even as a watermark of some sort. By using a timestamp and waiting until the next opportunity, maybe minutes, hours, or days away, no time correlation detection is possible either.
People say big tech is ethical, fine. Maybe some ad company is sponsoring some free app or game for the phone, and slipping this in there. Now the developer can pay their rent and food costs. Maybe the ad company is then selling that data back to big tech who washes their hands of any wrongdoing. Maybe it's all legal because the fine print of the EULA allows for this.
Seems to me though this can be figured out empirically, just have a voice play something like "need to buy adult diapers" or "new tires" etc next to a device, enumerate every device, look for ads on whatever very specific topic, minding along the way to tell nobody and never enter it in any internet-connected keyboard.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#36Theres a reason why they put a microphone in every single Internet connected device they can, even when it serves little purpose. My remote has a mic ffs, not to mention oddly specific ads after certain conversations.
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#37I know someone who worked on smart TV software. They explicitly added audio fingerprinting via integrated microphone so they could determine which programs you were watching for ad profiling.
When in the history of online ads have advertisers not used available data?
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#38Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about Apple paying 95 million dollars in fines for it? https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/02/business/apple-siri-priva...
Most of the post is disputing the point you're making. Did you read it?
Absolutely caught red handed - but I dont think Apple paid out 100m because "eh its easier this way".
Re: I still don't think companies serve you ads based on your microphone
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Ahh this one. Thanks for sharing, important point!
Basically this is just a random small-ish company trying to get new clients with a flashy feature. Ultimately they have to use the same data as everyone else, which I’m 99.99% sure doesn’t involve any intentional (much less “active”) recording by Google, Apple, or Meta. Maybe they have their own hardware partners that have networked microphones, maybe they’re really using incidental recordings from their “407 data partners”, or maybe it’s an empty promise - I sadly can’t read the original(ish) article https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-list...
It’s perhaps noteworthy that the intermediary source is the NYPost, which is most certainly junk! This story isn’t fake news, but it also isn’t presented in a honest way, IMHO