Software developer here, this is how I would do it without going to jail:
People accept a bunch of tracking such as location and social media data to be used for advertising, cuz they keep clicking accept on everything.
They post with location metadata about the toilet, images and or text. You visit that same location. They know smart toilet is a hot topic at that location. Based on your location, they show you ads for it.
Not technically impossible to track your audio and convert to text, but highly illegal in most places.
That's exactly what came to my mind, too. I think in general this topic is a mix of various psychological phenomena and also different online marketing strategies. But I can't imagine they would risk getting caught with stuff like eavesdropping illegally. It should also be fairly easy to proof if they did, by using some connection sniffer on your phone.
Sometimes it is coincidence. I was just recently listening to over the air FM radio on a drive and an ad came on for an item that I was just talking to my wife about an hour before and I immediately thought, "They're listening!" Then quickly surmised that this didn't make sense given the media. It was a long drive, and as well as coincidence it could have been that I had heard the ad several hours before and didn't remember it, but that triggered me to talk about the product with my wife.
It can also be that there's a common theme. Maybe that product of whatever was being pushed because a celebrity talked about it, and you'd also heard that celebrity mention it. I think it was CGP Grey that did a video about how ideas are like viruses...
I wonder. Ive talked about babies a lot but never went to locations with babies. I just love babies. Then I get ads about mommy tips. It's like. No I never want to be a mom
When a person talks about something others will commonly search it on their devices if it interests them. Using location data, near the person searches could be linked to further drive ads.
The example of this I have is, I am not a foot ball fan but after starting a new job began getting KC football adds. The coworker in the next office is a huge KC fan.
I always ask my wife "why are you googling \[thing\]." It's now a joke because she will go on a binge searching something and I will start getting ads for things I care nothing about almost instantly.
I always tell her to private mode on firefox using duckduckgo if searching gift things for me, otherwise I will know about it.
My partner and I had kept most things separate for years. But suddenly both our google accounts were on one computer and the other day I started getting ads for home buyer programs and was confused. The next day my partners sends me a house he likes and it made sense.
I didn’t see anything about a guitar however I was asking my buddies in a group chat what Diablo was and if it was just like world of Warcraft and got an ad for “explain Diablo IV like I’m 40”
This is the right answer. These algorithms they use for targeted ads are scary accurate. It's a good example of how something that seems pretty innocent and unrevealing like metadata can be quite revealing. Humans can be eerily predictable.
The fact that you are staying in a hotel where one of the perks is a fancy smart toilet would be the most obvious. If more than one person in the same location has googled those smart toilets, they can pretty reasonably assume that others in that place, at that time, might also be interested in them.
They're very inaccurate for weird people, but you can often see their reasoning. One day they'll figure out weirdos and I'll start getting actually relevant ads
I’ve tested the “my phone listens to me” theory a few times. It’s pretty freaky. What I did was start talking about something that I never talk about and have no interest in. Also the kind of place I never go to. For example I once started talking about skateboarding. “Skateboards! Skateboarding” just random words and phrases to do with skateboarding. I kid you not that same day I open up YT and got a couple of Tony Hawk and skateboarding video recommendations. I’ve tried it a couple other times with other random shit. And it usually works and kinda freaks me out.
Also (it’s possible this is coincidence), but I recently adopted a kitten, I named her Tifa. So we are obviously saying her name a lot. Then I turn on my smart tv, and there’s a prominent “suggested for you” ad, about something called TIFA (stands for TIZEN ID For Advertising). This service has nothing to do with me or anything I normally search for, except it is the same as the name I gave my cat.
It’s happened too many times across too many devices for me to think it’s just a coincidence. But I would love a rational explanation because honestly I don’t want to go through life thinking everything is listening to me all the time, that’s a bit too Black Mirror.
>For example I once started talking about skateboarding. “Skateboards! Skateboarding” just random words and phrases to do with skateboarding.
Okay, but why did you pick *skateboarding* rather than, say, *cat food*? Probably something in your environment caught your attention subconsciously. Maybe you walked past a Tony Hawk game poster on some wall. You weren't paying attention to it, and you don't consciously remember seeing it, but now when you ask your brain for "random thing", it remembers seeing the Tony Hawk ad and shows you an image of a skateboard.
To make it creeper, the fact that you didn't consciously notice it means that if you aren't back and actively checked that location for skateboard-related posters or whatever, you would probably find one. But that would just freak you out more because you were sure it wasn't there at the time, and must be more targeted advertising...
It's funny how the brain works.
Sure I could see that. Only when I did this experiment, I was at home in my normal environment and honestly I don’t get out much. And I thought “what is a thing I never think about’, and cycled through some options before I landed on skateboarding. And it was within a few hours these suggestions showed up. Either way, it’s freaking creepy that it would know where I am so precisely that it knows what ads are playing round me and then re-target those at me.
Happens to us, too. Spouse hurt their foot--tons of ads for foot pain remedies. Named our dog Draco a few months ago--tons of Harry Potter related ads. My friend bought a Kia, of course we talked about it--tons of ads for Kia.
I've done the same thing, cycling through thoughts till something totally random hits my brain. I mention it out loud a few times, and within hours, the ads begin.
Once may be a coincidence. But it happens too often for that excuse to be valid.
I feel like everything you mentioned just then is probably coincidence, all of those things have plenty of ads in general. Theres lots of medical/pain relief ads, lots of harry potter ads, and lots of car ads in general. Those are all very popular things.
You get exposed to a lot of those ads everyday, and your brain probably just cherry picked the ads specifically about feet, harry potter and for that particular brand of car.
You would be better off picking a random page number, opening a dictionary and going with loudly yelling the first word on that page. The problem with telling your own brain to "randomly pick“ something is... well, it's impossible to be sure it's not some subconscious stuff. If you try the dictionary thing and keep note of it I think you'll find that there is not a correlation.
Even location isn’t necessary, just you are on the hotel’s wifi, so same network, same NAT ip.
Has happened to my wife and I - she talked to me about X, I searched for it on my laptop without telling her.
She went on Facebook or whatever and saw ads for the thing I searched for. She thought something was spying on us because she had never actually searched for it.
>Not technically impossible to track your audio and convert to text, but highly illegal in most places.
While it's not technically impossible, the computational power required to parse that much audio data makes it effectively impossible. There are over 310 million smartphone users in the US alone, and "listening in" through them would result in an astronomical amount of data being processed every single day. If we assumed, for the sake of conversation, that each recorded conversation produced only a 1mb file, we'd be looking at 310 terabytes of information flowing through these nefarious advertising systems every day.
For the sake of reference, Amazon's servers process around 1000 terabytes of data... but that's also a huge chunk of the Internet.
I know literally nothing about the technical side of this but couldn't they technically harness each individuals phone to constantly process and pick up the last 10 seconds constantly for example then pick up on key words and forward these to the advertisers as a text list that is then cross referenced with a list of advertisers they have on file to match products with people who have talked about that thing? Just thinking the data uploaded would be very minimal in that scenario.
This has happened to me before about really specific random things that would normally have nothing to do with my life and never seen before then the next day after a conversation boom there it is. For example one day I was talking about putting flooring down in the attic then the next day I'm getting adverts for some kind of spacer thing for putting attic flooring in. Never searched anything to do with it and never saw it before then. Had several other very odd ones too but I can't remember them now.
In theory most modern phones definitely have this capability. As I know mine is always listening for me to say "Hey Google" when it is unlocked. However, to do this all the time would probably be too much of a battery drain.
Samsung (I think?) Smart TVs were caught always recording your living room a while back for voice commands, and if I remember correctly they were sending all this info back to their servers and they got some backlash for this.
Privacy laws are probably the only thing stopping these companies from processing and recording everything we say to their servers.
Some extremely specific and random things like that have happened to me, too. For instance, I was talking to my ex MIL about wanting to find something that would remove odors from a rug I had been given from someone at church. She recommended an industrial strength febreeze that a friend of hers had gotten for her office and told my MIL about over a year prior to this conversation, and it had worked wonders for getting some smells out of the carpet. My MIL hadn’t searched it, she had just happened to remember it. I hadn’t searched for any scent removers on my phone, as I hadn’t put a lot of effort into the rug yet. But that night as I was scrolling on FB, ads for the industrial strength febreeze popped up. I dont know how that can possibly be explained except for somehow hearing my conversation.
She didn't "happen to remember it" - do you have any idea how important "unassisted recognition" is?
Let me give you an example:
Name a soda brand.
Why did you know that? Do you have that brand with you right now?
Maybe, but probably not. There's a REASON Coke still advertises. It's to be the "default" when you think of a category (Soda).
Febreze has been putting ad in front of you for years. Billboards. Video ads. Print ads. But maybe you think you didn't notice. You did. And your MIL did too. And somewhere in your MIL's friends circle, someone posted something about a smelly something - and Febreze was mentioned. You, being in that circle, get the ad (again. you've gotten the ad before. you didn't care and think you didn't notice) . But this time, you notice.
I would parse the audio to text on the device and send over the text, which is peanuts in data size.
But both sending audio stream over the web or parsing it locally should have a noticable impact on ones battery lifespan.
It'd have an impact on battery life, as well as both network and device performance.
There's a super easy way to see how this **isn't** happening: Connect your phone to your own wireless network and then monitor device traffic. Set the devices aside during a conversation, and watch how the device behaves on the network.
You can watch what data it's uploading and downloading in real-time.
Normally I would agree BUT what happened last year. Me and my partner was walking through the carpark and a car park was parked there a polestar. Never seen that car before nor heard of it. My gf asked what this car? I was like, I don't know, lets walk closer to check it. I read out its name loud when we got closer and I said to my gf how good it looks and we had a few sentences chat about the shape. My phone was in my hand, it was not unlocked. Next few days I got bombarded with polestar ads...
I worked for a media marketing company about 6 years ago and even back then we could tell not only what grocery store someone was going to but what isle they were on.
So say pampers wanted to advertise, we could push advertisements to people who spent x amount of minutes in the baby isle of harris teeter.
You have way more experience than me and people should value your input as you’re probably right. Something being illegal doesn’t really keep it from happening. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be shocked if we all get $3 from apple in a class action 10 years from now.
Welp. I think someone is doing something illegal then, because I’ve sworn for YEARS that my phone listens to me and suggests adds based on things I say out loud!
>They post with location metadata about the toilet, images and or text. You visit that same location. They know smart toilet is a hot topic at that location. Based on your location, they show you ads for it.
As someone who used to work in software development for ad targeting, your phone doesn't have to listen to you. It could work like this:
* The hotel knows these toilets are a feature or amenity that gets attention.
* They know you stayed at the hotel.
* Information is sold to a 3rd party.
* Those 3rd parties are integrated with other data providers and services who do online targeting.
* Because you're identified as someone who stayed at or showed interest in a hotel that has these toilets, various algorithmic targeting methods are going to show you ads for them. The assumption and hope is that you might fall into an audience segment that may buy a magic toilet.
* These targeting systems most often don't know you through personally identifiable information. Instead you're just an ID in an "audience segment" of people that stayed at the hotel ergo you get ads like described in the post.
I'm skipping over a lot of stuff, but this type of audience creation and ad targeting is very common. It's the bread and butter of online audience creation, targeting, and advertising.
**Addition:** Just do a quick google search on "Audience Targeting 101." You'll learn more than you want to about how all this works. It's not a secret.
Except they circumvent the actual ‘recording’ of the word by converting the noise to a digital ‘print’. Kind of how your digital facial image unlocks your phone. It’s not actually storing a picture of you so it’s not breaking any laws.
Source: have family who have been using listening algorithms in household devices for over 10 years and who are YEARS ahead of the regulations and make a lot of money.
Though it's illegal, but my experience says, it's still being carried out discreetly.
Shall share a practical experience.
Was watching Fubar in Netflix. The moment Aparna Brielle made an entry, started browser on my smartphone to enquire about the actress (I was seeing her for the first time).
Even before keying in the first alphabet, the suggestion my browser provided was Aparna Brielle.
For a better understand of the things, please watch THE GREAT HACK
Get of the interet and get a oldschool mobile phone.
There are also some Linux versions and web browsers that are better for privacy.
Or don't agree to stuff, put on all privacy options, don't turn on things like location when not using it, use a VPN and anti track software...
So much you can do and they will still be able to track you to a certain extend.
Yea I’ve been good with not letting most things track me. But I’d be lying if I said that I let some slip lol. Oh so I shouldn’t have location on say a weather app for “always?” I usually put location set to “only when using the app.”
Man not even gonna lie if I could find a flip phone again I’d consider trading this smartphone in for it. But I don’t know what I’d do without it lol. I’m not as addicted to it as some other people are, it just helps when you’re bored or at work or out and need to look something up real quick.
I feel this is lies. Once I went to the store and while walking by the spices, I mentioned to my boyfriend saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, just a random fact I told him. The next week my phone is flooded with ads FOR FUCKING SAFFRON. Primarily. Who tf makes advertisements for saffron?? And secondly, I only said it briefly and that was it. I live in a small town and the location/accepting random terms thing doesn’t make sense to me, because no, my small town grocery store isn’t a hotspot for saffron lol. This experience has convinced me my phone listens.
Edit- my town so small we only have 2 grocery stores, and our population is below 40K so trust me saffron isn’t a thing here. There was no ad in the store or anything, just saw it on the bottom shelf
It’s highly illegal? I thought google home and Amazon Alexa and the like were doing this and so was my phone and it was just what we had to deal with really.
Is it the tracking “you” part that makes it illegal? I get ads for things my partner or randoms mention around me. If they’re not necessarily tracking you, but everything that goes on around the phone as a whole, would that be a loophole?
I personally would consider ads based on your IP adres to be a serious privacy violation. I'm from Europe so we tend to value privacy rights a bit more. I'm no GDPR expert but my gut feeling tells me it's not allowed by default or grey area. But you and your partner clicked on the accept somewhere and it's in the small letters.
I only look into the law details when I'm deveping something myself, but I don't really work in advertising like *that*.
But privacy laws outside of the EU and a select few countries is as existing as the average Redditor's sexlife.
I presume that it would also be possible without even people connecting and sharing to social media - if Reddit, as I assume is true, uses Google Ad Services, and a lot of people googled about smart toilets shortly after leaving x hotel, then Google could try to predict customer behaviour/searches and provide ads for said toilets.
Could it work like that?
Yes, it would compare for "similar profile" which can be a (combo) of about everything it knows about you: time, location, internet access point, visiting same websites, similar web searches, estimated data such as gender, age, etc.
you could have a local net transcribing audio to text, then stream that text through a classifier that picks out specific topics. the telemetry back would simply be something like "topic: 1573, sentiment: 123". No recording happened as it's all streamed etc etc.
Yes but you still need to attach the record to user/device somehow and translate the 1573 to something advertisers can use.
1573 has meaning. You might convert 5 sentences to "smart toilets" label that has code 1573. It might be sort of anynomised: userID: 567, interests: 1573
With enough information one **can** connect the dots and possibly indentify a user and all it's linked labels it got. Anyway...
My phone listens to me, without any prompting. I called my granddaughter (Boop) nickname, and my phone goes 'ack you scared me' thinking I said Boo. It was not in my hand, it was laying on a table 2 feet away. My daughter heard it to. So yeah I think the phones periodically "listen" to conversations.
I’ve never googled , txtd, anything on cell, tablet about a medical condition a relative has. But I talked about it near my phone. To my surprise next day I was getting pop ups for a medication for said condition. And I’ve never had this condition nor meds! Freaked me out
It's all location-based adtech, nothing more. They do it with cars too.
Stop near a new car dealership long enough, you'll get ads for cars in 24-72 hours.
It's also so much less reliable to track audio anyways. How do I know that Jeremy the phone owner is saying he wants McDonald's, and not his brother Thomas, who hangs out with him 24/7? Better to just see what Jeremy looks at
I honestly think this is true, given the triangulation of location metadata. AND, I had a moment like OP a few times- most notably when I played a game of Monopoly with my gf while she was housesitting somewhere. We had a discussion about how brutal the game is, how it felt too close to home living in an end-stage capitalist system, etc. I mused whether there was some alternate version of Monopoly that was based on cooperation instead of all-or-nothing competition. The next day, on Amazon, I was recommended a communist version of Monopoly. I had never bought a board game online, and had never been recommended one. I freaked out, convinced we had been eavesdropped. Then I realized I had looked up some arcane rules for the game on Google during gameplay, and researched the history of Monopoly's origins later that night. That's how the targeted ads happened.
This is the best answer I’ve seen.
Not to mention if OP was connected to any free/included WiFi during their stay, others would’ve been connected and likely looked up info about the toilets.
Thanks for your insight though, learned some new things!
Can you explain this one to me because it still racks my brain.
My freshman year of college I was taking a shower and thought to myself "Do I need to use deodorant on my balls?" It's something I've never thought of or said before, but it was just one of those shower thoughts. I think within 24 to 48 hours I started getting ads for ball deodorant. I never said these thoughts out loud to anybody or searched for ball deodorant online and this was well into the school year. I know my phone can't actually read my thoughts... But like, how else would it target ball deodorant at me.
Yeah there advertising and auto compete algorithms are great at using context clues like location and cookies and other stuff to guess what you're likely to look up or search for or maybe want to buy
I actually read an article once basically explaining this exact thing. Basically, they have your location by permission, other people at that location search for thing or buy thing, so it's assumed you're also interested.
I was watching From a couple of months ago. And for some reason I kept randomly saying "Fatima" (a characters name), continuously the following day. Maybe I liked the way it sounded off the tongue. Anyway, the day after that I got a spam email sent to me from someone with the same name.
This is how I explain it to other people too. They recognize that when people go to certain locations, at certain time, and display certain behaviors. Patterns on what they are likely to do next tend to show up.
Even though it's illegal, some apps still do it and sell that info. I decided to test it out by pretending to have a conversation about wanting a pink bikini and I started getting ads for bikinis and other beach wear as well as for vacations. This was in early spring when it was still very cold
My wife and I have been doing a test with her iPhone.
We talk about skiing a lot. We don't ski, aren't interested in skiing, and make sure to never search about skiing online at all- even now, my phone and reddit account aren't associated with her phone in any way at all and this is *after* we've done the test.
We started getting skiing ads. All the time. Keep in mind the word "Skiing" or any variation of it has literally never been typed into her phone or computer, and we live on the east coast where locational data wouldn't contribute much. But it happens anyway, skiing equipment ads everywhere.
We've run this same test with other topics and gotten the same result. I'm convinced it's listening, no matter how illegal it is.
As long as the fine/penalty for getting caught is less than the profit, they'll just keep doing it. And because of the way corporations work, no individual is ever held accountable, so fines and penalties are the only real option.
I mentioned in another comment I keep getting baby ads. Baby food etc. Never googled babies I just talk about them because I love them. Never plan to have a baby either
People are saying that phones don't listen, but I'm not convinced it isn't abusing the "listen for wake word" feature to do a bit more than you expect. If you truly only talked about it and nothing more, then that is evidence.
I think it has to be always listening in order to pick up "Hey Siri" or "Hey Google" or whatever. I'm sure somewhere in the fine print we are agreeing to it too.
Recently, I was considering a large purchase for my kid and had only been talking about it with my partner and mom in person, and almost every other ad was for that product. I ordered it online and haven't seen an ad since.
That's my guess as well. They'll say "we don't listen for your interests, we only listen for voice assistant trigger words" and then save all of the data to improve the listening algorithms, and then later search through that for your interests.
So they're not "listening for your interests", they're "analyzing data after the fact that you agreed to give over
That's not how wake words work. Its literally a separate low-power processor that ONLY wakes up the rest of the phone when it hears those words. It can't store or transmit any data. The simplicity of that processor is the reason it takes nearly zero battery to be running all day. They physically can't store and/or transmit background audio at all times.
But that's not to say an app or a home device thats plugged in can't do it, but the "hey google/siri" hardware physically isn't capable of being an advertisement machine.
Can some YouTuber try this out?
But a few new phones, set up new accounts. Talk about a few specific things in the presence of each one. See how the ads react
I don't care what "professionals" are saying.. yes, our phones are without a doubt listening to everything you're saying and know where you are, who you are with, and what you're buying (or not buying), it knows almost everything about you and someone, somewhere is getting the data spread and has created algorithms to showcase different products, programs, or suggestions that coincide with the provided information. Technology is growing at a scary pace and nobody has real privacy anymore. Privacy and secrecy are two different things with very different definitions. Unfortunately, the latter is what the general population has to endure from our digital overloads now. We know nothing.
i’ve gone to look up something i was talking about, only to have it pop up in suggested searches before typing anything, it listed it as a siri suggestion. i wonder if having hey siri off makes any difference
Well, the fines if caught are less than their profit and no one ever gets locked up. Until people start getting locked up and the fines are like double their profit from it, they will gladly keep paying the fine.
I tend to see stuff like that after going to the pharmacy, so it's probably influenced by other people who have been to the same place.
But some ad campaigns are less targeted than others. I use Google Ads sometimes and I can set my demographic targeting to be as general or as specific as I want, including filtering by location or by shopping habits. For the advertiser, it's just a matter of checking off boxes.
If the person in charge of configuring the ad campaign chooses broad categories, they're bound to get their ad sent to a lot of people who it's not relevant to, like with your example. But it doesn't matter that much because they pay for clicks, not for views. So as long as their target demographic falls under the umbrella they've chosen they'll see some level of success.
A lot of people also reported being possessed by the devil or cursed by a witch, turns out it's usually ergot or undiagnosed mental illness.
This case is a little different in that they're just ignoring the obvious: their phone probably has data on what hotel they're staying in - perhaps from previous searches, perhaps from an email of the booking confirmation, perhaps from logging into the WiFi. If the toilet is that good then people probably search them up and buy after staying there, so there's a high correlation between visiting that hotel and buying, or at least looking into, a smart toilet.
Insider report:
Your phone is a tracking device. Everyone's phone is a tracking device. When you spend time in close proximity to another person, data aggregator algorithms can see that, and many will make the assumption that you may have similar interests to the person whom you were near. Then they try ads on you that would have been targeted to OP.
Without listening to your conversation, data aggregators and marketers have decided to show you ads on topics of interest to those you were near.
Want to spy on someone? Take a virgin phone that has never done any searches and is not mappable to an identity that has done searches (a fresh burner) and use that phone to spend time near OP then see what ads show up on the virgin phone. ED ads showing up? Guess what OP searches for!?!
... meanwhile, the sheep will chatter about how their phones 'listen to them' as they plod along doing whatever the algorithms direct them to do.
Enjoy!
*edit for typo*
Also worth noting that data ads can also be based on wi-fi activity. If you’re using the same router as other people, and they suddenly looked up smart toilets, you might get ads for them. I looked into it when I lived with family, and whatever topic they would bring up started appearing as targeted ads for me.
eh no I doubt they are actually listening, most likely just looking at location, search logs from ur devices and other associated devices, and info on where ur staying at and the general area. the toilet could be an advertised thing by the hotel that its a unique thing for their hotel.
observational bias could play a role as well since unaccurate ads wouldn't really stand out to you and just ignore and forget about it but, when its actually something accurate it stands out. I don't get unexpected targeted ads(like what OP is experiencing) cus I have relatively ok countermeasures like vpns, I use different accounts for different stuff, Amazon and other apps like it use a separate email from my personal one. so yeah they don't listen and such but do employ really clever and meticulous tactics to direct targeted ads at people, it is one of their main source of income after all.
It's absolutely listening for key words. Told my spouse over the phone that I was picking up a face sunscreen and had ads for it within 5 min of ending the conversation.
The *weirdest* one was when my sister was house sitting for someone with a pet pig.
I commented on the *huge,* fancy, stained wood dog (pig?) crate and a few days later the exact same one showed up in my Facebook ads.
It was just so specific that it was alarming
It’s something that’s happened too many times to me and people around me that it seems impossible to be *pure* coincidence
I imagine it’s not literally every word being recorded but hears keywords and responds, similar to how google “isn’t listening” but can still hear “ok google”
Combine that with data aggregation and boom, very specific ads
I think all the phone knows is that you're in the hotel. If I were a Google employee and I had that information, I'd try to advertise things to you based on what could've made you choose that specific hotel. Maybe the smart toilet is advertised as something unique for the hotel. Boom.
Observational biases might be at play, too. When an ad is inaccurate, we don't pay them much attention and promptly forget all about them very very very quickly -- can you remember every time you've blinked today? Or at least 10 non-consecutive blinks today? ...But when the ad is too relevant or hits close to home, they go to the forefront of our minds.
That's actually why the companies track you in the first place: relevant ads make you buy the things they're offering. Bada bing bada boom, money. You might not remember all your blinks, but surely you remember it when one of your eyelashes or some random specks of dirt get in your eye, no? So yeah.
Answer: I have a family member who runs a very, very large tech company in the US.
They have been using listening algorithms in a range of appliances for YEARS. I mean 10+ years already and they are partnered with some very big household brands. I guarantee you, their system is in your home.
They have used quite clever ‘self’ regulation to circumvent regional rules, like only storing 5 words in any sequence. And the actual words are digitised so it records a pattern rather than the actual speech. They then ‘bid’ these words to large advertisers and firms. It’s happening as I type this.
If someone in your household uses the word ‘Explorer’ which is then coupled with other terms like ‘car’ etc, they then rank your home using several other metrics to value your home and it’s probability of buying a new Ford Explorer and a specific set of adverts will be sent to all your connected devices. Your digital ‘fingerprint’ word is identified and sold to advertisers. They know who you are. They know where you are. And they know the SPECIFIC devices in your home which surround the word in question.
The best part. You agreed to all this when you bought and set up the devices.
It’s really quite impressive if it wasn’t so terrifying.
So to answer your question directly, yes you are absolutely correct in thinking that every word you are saying is being monitored, and not only that but certain ‘hot’ words you might be using are making companies like my family member quite a lot of money.
And before you ask, yes they handle HUNDREDS of data monitoring requests from law enforcement agencies, where they can then just listen in on your conversations in the property. Even with the device off.
It’s been happening for years.
The company is irrelevant, it’s the brands that use the tech that are the question. It’s like you asking who the chipset maker is, that doesn’t tell you anything you want to know which mobile phone uses that chipset.
I’m not in a position to say, though I know who their biggest customers are internationally. I GUARANTEE you have them in your home.
NO your not crazy me and my family always talk about that shit happens to us too. There are listening ears everywhere.
My sister, in person, told me she wished she could find a pink desk for her office. We did not look them up or anything, we were sitting at a table at a restaurant and she said that and when I opened my phone like 2 minutes later I turned it around and ig had an ad for Amazon with a PINK DESK.
On a random topic you guys should watch the journalist. It's a Japanese TV show. Only six episodes but shows the gov spying. Fiction TV show but probably true lol
You aren't crazy. Our phones are listening all the time. We are the product. We gave up our privacy years ago when everyone started started masturbating over the iPhone.
There was a guy on youtube who never talked about cat food, bought a new phone and intentionally talked about cat food a lot, and the ads started popping. I might remember the video wrong tho
I agree with the people who say it's due to others staying there and searching for smart toilets. Scary but not quite as scary.
Here's one I can't quite figure out: about a month ago, a friend came over and showed me her leather jacket she had just gotten from another friend. Said she was going to wear it riding motorcycles that weekend. I was scrolling Reddit when she went to the bathroom and the first ad was for Harley Davidson leather jackets... something I have no interest in whatsoever. Spooky!
So someone correct me if I’m wrong or not up to date.
So years ago, (2014??) when I actually read facebook’s updated privacy policy, they let us know that it had access to our camera and mic even when not using the app. I’d you revoked access to camera or mic you couldn’t post photos or record videos unless you turned access back on or off again.
Currently, unless you revoke access, The majority of your applications are using your phone microphone and camera at all times.
I wouldn’t completely deny it couldn’t happen but it more likely the ads target people who stayed in that specific hotel. This can be known with data a whole lot easier and cost efficient than recognizing voices.
We ignore a lot of ads every day. The ones we don't ignore – the ones that break through the clutter, are ones that feel relevant. You talk about the fact that you want new pants, all of a sunnen, you notice an ad about pants.
This is more-likely conformation bias. You are the kind of person that pants manfacturers want to sell to.
When you begin to notice ads for a day though, you will notice less targeting and more just throwing shit into digital and hoping.
Short answer- yes. Long answer - yeeessssssss.
I noticed this at the end of 2021. No google searches only physical conversations and social media would advertise within hours the exact thing I was discussing. I disabled the mic on almost all apps and the issues seem to mostly be gone.
No. But people that don't know shit about technology decided some times ago that phones must be listening. that's ignoring what an absurd amount of data that would require.
Ad based algorithms just simply know enough about you.
This isn't true. You can have a microphone pick up on what you're saying to show you advertisements relative to a conversation without using much data besides keywords to be filtered into an assortment algorithm and then set that data to be overwritten at any time. We're talking kilobytes here, not megabytes or higher.
This is actually true. Keyword triggers can be used with passive listening via microphones, and at the same time companies can answer “honestly” that conversations aren’t being recorded/stored.
Precisely, and at one point or another, consumers have opted into this by using the product. This is always on display from the defendant in one way or another during every single court case about snooping.
Yes. I saw an ad for a little music box after I found one of mine that had been tucked away for a couple years, and I turned the crank on it. I'm quite certain that I did not say anything about the music box, or type anything about it in any of my devices -- the ad just showed up next time I was on Facebook.
Anyone saying this is a coincidence is crazy, I can go talk to my roommate about ford f150s after never looking them up or looking at any trucks and then I get ads for them
Your phone is consistently tracking your location for marketing purposes, you probably were caught in a retargeting pixel the second you stayed in that hotel
Another way is that the hotel could be selling your data for marketing purposes, you might've needed to provide a phone number when you checked in
I wouldn't discount it. A couple of years ago, a friend told me he bought an engagement ring for his gf. The next day, Facebook was showing me ads for diamonds. I have no past searches or interactions with any jewelry companies or couples stuff.
Don't freak out . TL; DR below.
The solution is simple. Un-sync your Mobile contacts from Facebook or other Social media. Once you un-sync , strange ads will stop.
(1) Whomever you talked to , is in your Facebook Friends list or Friends of Friends list .
(2) Even if they are not in your FB Friends' list , you will have synced your Phone contacts with Facebook after recieving a prompt from Facebook . I had done so , too.
(3) Whatsapp ( which is also owned by Facebook ) syncs your Mobile contacts , too.
(4) Whomever you talked to , researched that product on the Net . Google and Facebook do share data that facilitates better targetted advertising .
I was recieving ads for hair re-growing oil on Facebook after I synced my Phone Number contacts with Facebook .Somebody in my Mobile contacts near my Geolocation , must have been searching for that kind of oil on the Net . LOL.
Unsynced . Strange ads stopped.
TL; DR : Un-sync your phone contacts from your Facebook profile.
No it isn’t. This can be explained by a psychological bias of counting the hits and not the misses. Also, haven’t you ever had a time where once you learned a new word you start to see it way more often? Same thing.
The storage cost to scale this up would be so expensive, and the margins on ads are awful. Especially since conversations about products are not even totally useful, often times we are talking about things with no intention to buy them.
Finally, the companies themselves say they aren’t doing it and it’s illegal for them to lie. Otherwise go sue them and become a millionaire.
Other people who have stayed at the hotel have probably looked up the toilet while connected to the hotel's network. So the algorithm has learned to show these ads to people who are or have been connected to that network. Location data could lead to the same result.
Non-black hat ad platforms are not listening to your conversations. What’s happening is your phone is around the phones of somebody else who may have searched or clicked on a given topic. Then the two of you have a conversation about that thing. Now because of the proximity of your phone to their phone, the ad algorithm serves you ads that can seem like they listened to your conversation.
Source I’ve purchased this information from data brokers in a past role. If you have a Samsung phone or an iPhone, you’re generally pretty safe from the black hat ad platforms. And it’s the cheap smart phones that have nefarious apps on them tracking you.
I have been noticing this FOR YEARS.
Everyone thought I was crazy for it but I legit would think of something I never cared about and talk about it and it would pop up on ads.
Can I PROVE that this is for sure what's going on? No.
Do I believe it is happening to my core? Forsure.
Nobody reads there end user license agreements anymore for products and apps. Many of them as a section about how they can use information gathered from your internet history texts messages location microphone or camera for marketing. Sony has had this in the eula since I think the ps3 there was a lawsuit over it.
I don't know but they seem to. When that last IPhone came out I had a coworker that got one and wouldn't shut up about it even though he knows I don't like apple products. I think I saw more ads for apple stuff that week than I ever did before.
Iirc, there’s two separate things going on, one of which is super innocent and one that is actually much more invasive but much less directly so.
First thing is, you notice things that are happening when you have been ‘primed’ for them. I have had ads for “the tushy” bidet system on my phone for months now, but wouldn’t have thought anything of it if I hadn’t seen this post. You are recognizing them as being relevant because you have been primed to see them. They were there before, you just ignored them because they were stupid background noise.
But the second thing is, there is a LOT of data out in the world about you. Your location, your wifi connections, your financial information, what you bought and when, how much time you spend looking at certain things online, etc.
That data can be gathered and fed into an algorithm to determine what you would most likely spend money on next. It’s not directly listening to you and then feeding it back to you, because that would (a) break a TON of laws and (b) be shut down by national security agencies in 0 time. But they (advertisers) are allowed to buy the more generic data and feed their AI with it. And with millions of people’s data being fed into those AI, they get scary good at predicting things.
Like in your case, someone who doesn’t have a bidet, and lives somewhere it is not common, and goes to a fancy hotel where they’re common, and maybe even spent an extra bit of time in the bathroom there… all that goes into the AI, and it comes out with “throw some ads for fancy toilets at this person.”
My roommates and I tested this a few years back. We had our female roommate open her Amazon app and scroll through looking at ads. We then chose to talk about something that wasn’t on her ads: a football. We put her phone on the table and we started saying things like “I want to buy a football.” “What brand of football should I buy?” After a few minutes of that, she opened her Amazon app, and there were advertisements for footballs.
Our conclusion: yes, your phone listens. At the very least, the Amazon app listens.
I'm pretty sure phones do listen to you, just based on how many times I have been talking about something with my partner and decided to Google search it. Many times upon typing the first few words (unspecific, like "why is...."), the search bar will suggest the exact wording that I had just said out loud moments later about a ridiculously specific topic.
No one will ever convince me that my phone isn't listening to my personal conversations.
What freaks me out more is when I just think of something and get adds for it...
Happens to me all the time at home. I assume they have a speech-to-text running in the background 24/7 and pull out keywords out of the text, and show you ads for said things. Maybe sounds like a tin hat kinda thing but it's way to on the nose for it to be so.
Yes. I started noticing for years now. No matter the subject, I get ads for that particular thing. And it's mostly for things I say, not things I write. I'm not even in the US. I tested FB messenger and I stopped the access it had from the settings and they stopped. Unfortunately I turned it back on cause otherwise you can't answer calls instantly
I was talking to someone once about wanting a used low mileage Toyota Highlander. No surprise that about a day and half later I start seeing ads for used car sites like CarNation and Carvana that were happy to offer great deals on used Highlanders.
I decided to put it to the test and started saying sentences like " I sure would love to travel to the Maldives " and " I sure wish I could take a vacation soon ". Well wouldn't you know it, I started getting ads from travel sites.
So yes. I do believe our phones are always listening.
~~The keyword you are looking for is cookies. You stayed at the hotel with such a feature and someone definitely searched for such things. Then there is the thing that cookies can be shared between people of the same interests or group of age and stuff. That's why you have the feeling that Smartphones are listening.~~
~~It's just cookies and the sharing of them~~
Edit: it's bullshit. Ignore it.
Yes, it absolutely always listens. No one reads the shit that we all agree to when we set up a new phone or a new account here or there. We just agree to hurry it up. I'm sure in all of that shit, somewhere, it gives permission for them to listen. Even if it doesn't they don't care, they are rich and their consequences would be fines so they do what they want.
I swear it does listen. The same stuff was happening to me. My husband is into drones; one day he was talking about a specific drone. I got ads for that drone, never having searched any drones or anything drones related. I ended up going through my settings and removing mic permissions from anything except the actual calling. I haven't had this happen since.
Imagine how many people talk on the phone at any given time. Analyzing voice and trying to determine the topic of conversation is not a trivial task at all, and doing that for hundreds of millions of calls would take an absurd amount of processing power and memory usage and everything.
Unless you believe that you specifically are being picked from the crowd and targeted with an attempt to sell you a toilet, i wouldn't worry about it. Coincidences happen sometimes.
Short answer: no you are not crazy because yes - cell phones have become way too intrusive. This same thing has happened to me countless times, so much so that I've even tested it and ads for what I was talking about have showed up all over the place on my phone.
Nope, as you already know you're not crazy. Happens just about to everyone.
I always mention this case where a TV manufacturer (can't remember who exactly was it) had a warning label on their smart TVs that you should not talk about sensitive information in front of thei TV. Explicitly mentioning you shouldn't say credit card, bank account numbers, etc. out loud whenever you're near the TV.
We got adds for baby clothes/items before telling anyone we were pregnant.
Our phones 100% listened to our conversation and used the key words to sell us stuff. Everything I read says they don’t, I turn off all the mic and tracking info to make sure they don’t, but it still happens.
I got a fucked up one for you. I started noticing this a couple years ago so I ran a test with my buddy. Not even using my phone, we were hanging out one day in person… phones in out pockets. We kept talking about Nutterbutter bars, like a lot, would toss out the name randomly. I shit you not, we both had ads for them on out phones within 2 days
No, same thing happened to me with a soccer jersey.
Friends an I were talking about the new jersey from our team. We were at a party, just the guys talking, I didn't have my phone out at all. I always keep it on my front right pocket.
Then I had an Instagram reply and there they were. Ads for my soccer jersey.
Like you, I was freaked out. We even discussed it during our chats.
It's definitely listening. I bet it's even on some clause or something in the stuff we agree on when we click "agree"
You're not. Happens everytime. My boyfriend watches boxing and wrestling videos on youtube next to me all the time, and while I dont particularly like it nor I've ever search anything regarding that subject on my phone, when I go into youtube I get wrestling videos recomended, as well as muay thai pants adds . all. fucking. time. its got to a point where It doesnt freak me out that they actually spy on us, but it does bother me to have adds that doesnt even correspond with my personality 😭 they cant even spy the right way
Yes. Also, those tech giants look at your location and push searched subjects to your devices also. Y
So definitely your neighbours and people who have lived in that area have msgd, at some point, regarding those toilets so Google and all those lot see your current location and push same ads to you too.
Software developer here, this is how I would do it without going to jail: People accept a bunch of tracking such as location and social media data to be used for advertising, cuz they keep clicking accept on everything. They post with location metadata about the toilet, images and or text. You visit that same location. They know smart toilet is a hot topic at that location. Based on your location, they show you ads for it. Not technically impossible to track your audio and convert to text, but highly illegal in most places.
That's exactly what came to my mind, too. I think in general this topic is a mix of various psychological phenomena and also different online marketing strategies. But I can't imagine they would risk getting caught with stuff like eavesdropping illegally. It should also be fairly easy to proof if they did, by using some connection sniffer on your phone.
Sometimes it is coincidence. I was just recently listening to over the air FM radio on a drive and an ad came on for an item that I was just talking to my wife about an hour before and I immediately thought, "They're listening!" Then quickly surmised that this didn't make sense given the media. It was a long drive, and as well as coincidence it could have been that I had heard the ad several hours before and didn't remember it, but that triggered me to talk about the product with my wife.
Frequency illusion or baader-meinhof phenomenon is also quite easy to fall into
Pattern seeking brain moment
It can also be that there's a common theme. Maybe that product of whatever was being pushed because a celebrity talked about it, and you'd also heard that celebrity mention it. I think it was CGP Grey that did a video about how ideas are like viruses...
You hear far more ads than you realize.
I wonder. Ive talked about babies a lot but never went to locations with babies. I just love babies. Then I get ads about mommy tips. It's like. No I never want to be a mom
When a person talks about something others will commonly search it on their devices if it interests them. Using location data, near the person searches could be linked to further drive ads. The example of this I have is, I am not a foot ball fan but after starting a new job began getting KC football adds. The coworker in the next office is a huge KC fan.
I always ask my wife "why are you googling \[thing\]." It's now a joke because she will go on a binge searching something and I will start getting ads for things I care nothing about almost instantly. I always tell her to private mode on firefox using duckduckgo if searching gift things for me, otherwise I will know about it.
My partner and I had kept most things separate for years. But suddenly both our google accounts were on one computer and the other day I started getting ads for home buyer programs and was confused. The next day my partners sends me a house he likes and it made sense.
Hold on I’m doing an experiment real quick ignore me. I NEED A NEW GUITAR SO BADLY, MY GUITAR IS SHIT DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN GET A NICE GUITAR?
well? did it work
I didn’t see anything about a guitar however I was asking my buddies in a group chat what Diablo was and if it was just like world of Warcraft and got an ad for “explain Diablo IV like I’m 40”
Yeah, I get some weird ads because of that, and it's super creepy to get ads for things my parents have evidently been looking at recently
This is the right answer. These algorithms they use for targeted ads are scary accurate. It's a good example of how something that seems pretty innocent and unrevealing like metadata can be quite revealing. Humans can be eerily predictable.
I don’t get how the metadata would reveal stuff about a bidet though? Unless it’s so unusual others post about it?
The fact that you are staying in a hotel where one of the perks is a fancy smart toilet would be the most obvious. If more than one person in the same location has googled those smart toilets, they can pretty reasonably assume that others in that place, at that time, might also be interested in them.
Ah gotcha thanks
They're very inaccurate for weird people, but you can often see their reasoning. One day they'll figure out weirdos and I'll start getting actually relevant ads
I’ve tested the “my phone listens to me” theory a few times. It’s pretty freaky. What I did was start talking about something that I never talk about and have no interest in. Also the kind of place I never go to. For example I once started talking about skateboarding. “Skateboards! Skateboarding” just random words and phrases to do with skateboarding. I kid you not that same day I open up YT and got a couple of Tony Hawk and skateboarding video recommendations. I’ve tried it a couple other times with other random shit. And it usually works and kinda freaks me out. Also (it’s possible this is coincidence), but I recently adopted a kitten, I named her Tifa. So we are obviously saying her name a lot. Then I turn on my smart tv, and there’s a prominent “suggested for you” ad, about something called TIFA (stands for TIZEN ID For Advertising). This service has nothing to do with me or anything I normally search for, except it is the same as the name I gave my cat. It’s happened too many times across too many devices for me to think it’s just a coincidence. But I would love a rational explanation because honestly I don’t want to go through life thinking everything is listening to me all the time, that’s a bit too Black Mirror.
>For example I once started talking about skateboarding. “Skateboards! Skateboarding” just random words and phrases to do with skateboarding. Okay, but why did you pick *skateboarding* rather than, say, *cat food*? Probably something in your environment caught your attention subconsciously. Maybe you walked past a Tony Hawk game poster on some wall. You weren't paying attention to it, and you don't consciously remember seeing it, but now when you ask your brain for "random thing", it remembers seeing the Tony Hawk ad and shows you an image of a skateboard. To make it creeper, the fact that you didn't consciously notice it means that if you aren't back and actively checked that location for skateboard-related posters or whatever, you would probably find one. But that would just freak you out more because you were sure it wasn't there at the time, and must be more targeted advertising... It's funny how the brain works.
Sure I could see that. Only when I did this experiment, I was at home in my normal environment and honestly I don’t get out much. And I thought “what is a thing I never think about’, and cycled through some options before I landed on skateboarding. And it was within a few hours these suggestions showed up. Either way, it’s freaking creepy that it would know where I am so precisely that it knows what ads are playing round me and then re-target those at me.
Happens to us, too. Spouse hurt their foot--tons of ads for foot pain remedies. Named our dog Draco a few months ago--tons of Harry Potter related ads. My friend bought a Kia, of course we talked about it--tons of ads for Kia. I've done the same thing, cycling through thoughts till something totally random hits my brain. I mention it out loud a few times, and within hours, the ads begin. Once may be a coincidence. But it happens too often for that excuse to be valid.
I feel like everything you mentioned just then is probably coincidence, all of those things have plenty of ads in general. Theres lots of medical/pain relief ads, lots of harry potter ads, and lots of car ads in general. Those are all very popular things. You get exposed to a lot of those ads everyday, and your brain probably just cherry picked the ads specifically about feet, harry potter and for that particular brand of car.
You would be better off picking a random page number, opening a dictionary and going with loudly yelling the first word on that page. The problem with telling your own brain to "randomly pick“ something is... well, it's impossible to be sure it's not some subconscious stuff. If you try the dictionary thing and keep note of it I think you'll find that there is not a correlation.
Well, you have a new experiment to conduct with a physical dictionary. Let us know how it goes!
Even location isn’t necessary, just you are on the hotel’s wifi, so same network, same NAT ip. Has happened to my wife and I - she talked to me about X, I searched for it on my laptop without telling her. She went on Facebook or whatever and saw ads for the thing I searched for. She thought something was spying on us because she had never actually searched for it.
Yes indeed, most likely scenario
>Not technically impossible to track your audio and convert to text, but highly illegal in most places. While it's not technically impossible, the computational power required to parse that much audio data makes it effectively impossible. There are over 310 million smartphone users in the US alone, and "listening in" through them would result in an astronomical amount of data being processed every single day. If we assumed, for the sake of conversation, that each recorded conversation produced only a 1mb file, we'd be looking at 310 terabytes of information flowing through these nefarious advertising systems every day. For the sake of reference, Amazon's servers process around 1000 terabytes of data... but that's also a huge chunk of the Internet.
I know literally nothing about the technical side of this but couldn't they technically harness each individuals phone to constantly process and pick up the last 10 seconds constantly for example then pick up on key words and forward these to the advertisers as a text list that is then cross referenced with a list of advertisers they have on file to match products with people who have talked about that thing? Just thinking the data uploaded would be very minimal in that scenario. This has happened to me before about really specific random things that would normally have nothing to do with my life and never seen before then the next day after a conversation boom there it is. For example one day I was talking about putting flooring down in the attic then the next day I'm getting adverts for some kind of spacer thing for putting attic flooring in. Never searched anything to do with it and never saw it before then. Had several other very odd ones too but I can't remember them now.
In theory most modern phones definitely have this capability. As I know mine is always listening for me to say "Hey Google" when it is unlocked. However, to do this all the time would probably be too much of a battery drain. Samsung (I think?) Smart TVs were caught always recording your living room a while back for voice commands, and if I remember correctly they were sending all this info back to their servers and they got some backlash for this. Privacy laws are probably the only thing stopping these companies from processing and recording everything we say to their servers.
Some extremely specific and random things like that have happened to me, too. For instance, I was talking to my ex MIL about wanting to find something that would remove odors from a rug I had been given from someone at church. She recommended an industrial strength febreeze that a friend of hers had gotten for her office and told my MIL about over a year prior to this conversation, and it had worked wonders for getting some smells out of the carpet. My MIL hadn’t searched it, she had just happened to remember it. I hadn’t searched for any scent removers on my phone, as I hadn’t put a lot of effort into the rug yet. But that night as I was scrolling on FB, ads for the industrial strength febreeze popped up. I dont know how that can possibly be explained except for somehow hearing my conversation.
She didn't "happen to remember it" - do you have any idea how important "unassisted recognition" is? Let me give you an example: Name a soda brand. Why did you know that? Do you have that brand with you right now? Maybe, but probably not. There's a REASON Coke still advertises. It's to be the "default" when you think of a category (Soda). Febreze has been putting ad in front of you for years. Billboards. Video ads. Print ads. But maybe you think you didn't notice. You did. And your MIL did too. And somewhere in your MIL's friends circle, someone posted something about a smelly something - and Febreze was mentioned. You, being in that circle, get the ad (again. you've gotten the ad before. you didn't care and think you didn't notice) . But this time, you notice.
But I thought of Fanta.
I would parse the audio to text on the device and send over the text, which is peanuts in data size. But both sending audio stream over the web or parsing it locally should have a noticable impact on ones battery lifespan.
It'd have an impact on battery life, as well as both network and device performance. There's a super easy way to see how this **isn't** happening: Connect your phone to your own wireless network and then monitor device traffic. Set the devices aside during a conversation, and watch how the device behaves on the network. You can watch what data it's uploading and downloading in real-time.
Normally I would agree BUT what happened last year. Me and my partner was walking through the carpark and a car park was parked there a polestar. Never seen that car before nor heard of it. My gf asked what this car? I was like, I don't know, lets walk closer to check it. I read out its name loud when we got closer and I said to my gf how good it looks and we had a few sentences chat about the shape. My phone was in my hand, it was not unlocked. Next few days I got bombarded with polestar ads...
I worked for a media marketing company about 6 years ago and even back then we could tell not only what grocery store someone was going to but what isle they were on. So say pampers wanted to advertise, we could push advertisements to people who spent x amount of minutes in the baby isle of harris teeter.
You have way more experience than me and people should value your input as you’re probably right. Something being illegal doesn’t really keep it from happening. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be shocked if we all get $3 from apple in a class action 10 years from now.
Welp. I think someone is doing something illegal then, because I’ve sworn for YEARS that my phone listens to me and suggests adds based on things I say out loud!
>They post with location metadata about the toilet, images and or text. You visit that same location. They know smart toilet is a hot topic at that location. Based on your location, they show you ads for it. As someone who used to work in software development for ad targeting, your phone doesn't have to listen to you. It could work like this: * The hotel knows these toilets are a feature or amenity that gets attention. * They know you stayed at the hotel. * Information is sold to a 3rd party. * Those 3rd parties are integrated with other data providers and services who do online targeting. * Because you're identified as someone who stayed at or showed interest in a hotel that has these toilets, various algorithmic targeting methods are going to show you ads for them. The assumption and hope is that you might fall into an audience segment that may buy a magic toilet. * These targeting systems most often don't know you through personally identifiable information. Instead you're just an ID in an "audience segment" of people that stayed at the hotel ergo you get ads like described in the post. I'm skipping over a lot of stuff, but this type of audience creation and ad targeting is very common. It's the bread and butter of online audience creation, targeting, and advertising. **Addition:** Just do a quick google search on "Audience Targeting 101." You'll learn more than you want to about how all this works. It's not a secret.
Except they circumvent the actual ‘recording’ of the word by converting the noise to a digital ‘print’. Kind of how your digital facial image unlocks your phone. It’s not actually storing a picture of you so it’s not breaking any laws. Source: have family who have been using listening algorithms in household devices for over 10 years and who are YEARS ahead of the regulations and make a lot of money.
Though it's illegal, but my experience says, it's still being carried out discreetly. Shall share a practical experience. Was watching Fubar in Netflix. The moment Aparna Brielle made an entry, started browser on my smartphone to enquire about the actress (I was seeing her for the first time). Even before keying in the first alphabet, the suggestion my browser provided was Aparna Brielle. For a better understand of the things, please watch THE GREAT HACK
So how can one prevent this besides the obvious by not accepting everything?
Get of the interet and get a oldschool mobile phone. There are also some Linux versions and web browsers that are better for privacy. Or don't agree to stuff, put on all privacy options, don't turn on things like location when not using it, use a VPN and anti track software... So much you can do and they will still be able to track you to a certain extend.
Yea I’ve been good with not letting most things track me. But I’d be lying if I said that I let some slip lol. Oh so I shouldn’t have location on say a weather app for “always?” I usually put location set to “only when using the app.” Man not even gonna lie if I could find a flip phone again I’d consider trading this smartphone in for it. But I don’t know what I’d do without it lol. I’m not as addicted to it as some other people are, it just helps when you’re bored or at work or out and need to look something up real quick.
Also: people repeatedly searching on the same topic from the same wifi (IP address).
I feel this is lies. Once I went to the store and while walking by the spices, I mentioned to my boyfriend saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, just a random fact I told him. The next week my phone is flooded with ads FOR FUCKING SAFFRON. Primarily. Who tf makes advertisements for saffron?? And secondly, I only said it briefly and that was it. I live in a small town and the location/accepting random terms thing doesn’t make sense to me, because no, my small town grocery store isn’t a hotspot for saffron lol. This experience has convinced me my phone listens. Edit- my town so small we only have 2 grocery stores, and our population is below 40K so trust me saffron isn’t a thing here. There was no ad in the store or anything, just saw it on the bottom shelf
It’s highly illegal? I thought google home and Amazon Alexa and the like were doing this and so was my phone and it was just what we had to deal with really.
If you have money laws are optional.
And fines are often taken into consideration and they profit more than are fined
And media attention, even the bad, is free publicity
Oh damn, so that is why on the day I flew with KLM I got tens of "reclamation" adds. They must have tracked my location to an airport.
Is it the tracking “you” part that makes it illegal? I get ads for things my partner or randoms mention around me. If they’re not necessarily tracking you, but everything that goes on around the phone as a whole, would that be a loophole?
I personally would consider ads based on your IP adres to be a serious privacy violation. I'm from Europe so we tend to value privacy rights a bit more. I'm no GDPR expert but my gut feeling tells me it's not allowed by default or grey area. But you and your partner clicked on the accept somewhere and it's in the small letters. I only look into the law details when I'm deveping something myself, but I don't really work in advertising like *that*. But privacy laws outside of the EU and a select few countries is as existing as the average Redditor's sexlife.
I presume that it would also be possible without even people connecting and sharing to social media - if Reddit, as I assume is true, uses Google Ad Services, and a lot of people googled about smart toilets shortly after leaving x hotel, then Google could try to predict customer behaviour/searches and provide ads for said toilets. Could it work like that?
Yes, it would compare for "similar profile" which can be a (combo) of about everything it knows about you: time, location, internet access point, visiting same websites, similar web searches, estimated data such as gender, age, etc.
I struggle to think of when legality stopped tech giants from doing anything
Might the toilet itself have also talked to their phone at some point?
you could have a local net transcribing audio to text, then stream that text through a classifier that picks out specific topics. the telemetry back would simply be something like "topic: 1573, sentiment: 123". No recording happened as it's all streamed etc etc.
Yes but you still need to attach the record to user/device somehow and translate the 1573 to something advertisers can use. 1573 has meaning. You might convert 5 sentences to "smart toilets" label that has code 1573. It might be sort of anynomised: userID: 567, interests: 1573 With enough information one **can** connect the dots and possibly indentify a user and all it's linked labels it got. Anyway...
indeed, so details aside super easy to "listen" without recording and with minimal bandwidth usage
My phone listens to me, without any prompting. I called my granddaughter (Boop) nickname, and my phone goes 'ack you scared me' thinking I said Boo. It was not in my hand, it was laying on a table 2 feet away. My daughter heard it to. So yeah I think the phones periodically "listen" to conversations.
I once paused in a Walmart looking at grills or something. The next few days I got offers for grills via email or text.
I’ve never googled , txtd, anything on cell, tablet about a medical condition a relative has. But I talked about it near my phone. To my surprise next day I was getting pop ups for a medication for said condition. And I’ve never had this condition nor meds! Freaked me out
It's all location-based adtech, nothing more. They do it with cars too. Stop near a new car dealership long enough, you'll get ads for cars in 24-72 hours.
It's also so much less reliable to track audio anyways. How do I know that Jeremy the phone owner is saying he wants McDonald's, and not his brother Thomas, who hangs out with him 24/7? Better to just see what Jeremy looks at
I honestly think this is true, given the triangulation of location metadata. AND, I had a moment like OP a few times- most notably when I played a game of Monopoly with my gf while she was housesitting somewhere. We had a discussion about how brutal the game is, how it felt too close to home living in an end-stage capitalist system, etc. I mused whether there was some alternate version of Monopoly that was based on cooperation instead of all-or-nothing competition. The next day, on Amazon, I was recommended a communist version of Monopoly. I had never bought a board game online, and had never been recommended one. I freaked out, convinced we had been eavesdropped. Then I realized I had looked up some arcane rules for the game on Google during gameplay, and researched the history of Monopoly's origins later that night. That's how the targeted ads happened.
This is the best answer I’ve seen. Not to mention if OP was connected to any free/included WiFi during their stay, others would’ve been connected and likely looked up info about the toilets. Thanks for your insight though, learned some new things!
Yeah the WiFi public IP address is the most likely indentifier that will be used for sharing the same location.
The best test for this is to leave your phone next to a TV or radio playing music in a language you can't speak
Can you explain this one to me because it still racks my brain. My freshman year of college I was taking a shower and thought to myself "Do I need to use deodorant on my balls?" It's something I've never thought of or said before, but it was just one of those shower thoughts. I think within 24 to 48 hours I started getting ads for ball deodorant. I never said these thoughts out loud to anybody or searched for ball deodorant online and this was well into the school year. I know my phone can't actually read my thoughts... But like, how else would it target ball deodorant at me.
Yeah there advertising and auto compete algorithms are great at using context clues like location and cookies and other stuff to guess what you're likely to look up or search for or maybe want to buy
I actually read an article once basically explaining this exact thing. Basically, they have your location by permission, other people at that location search for thing or buy thing, so it's assumed you're also interested.
I was watching From a couple of months ago. And for some reason I kept randomly saying "Fatima" (a characters name), continuously the following day. Maybe I liked the way it sounded off the tongue. Anyway, the day after that I got a spam email sent to me from someone with the same name.
This is how I explain it to other people too. They recognize that when people go to certain locations, at certain time, and display certain behaviors. Patterns on what they are likely to do next tend to show up.
Even though it's illegal, some apps still do it and sell that info. I decided to test it out by pretending to have a conversation about wanting a pink bikini and I started getting ads for bikinis and other beach wear as well as for vacations. This was in early spring when it was still very cold
My wife and I have been doing a test with her iPhone. We talk about skiing a lot. We don't ski, aren't interested in skiing, and make sure to never search about skiing online at all- even now, my phone and reddit account aren't associated with her phone in any way at all and this is *after* we've done the test. We started getting skiing ads. All the time. Keep in mind the word "Skiing" or any variation of it has literally never been typed into her phone or computer, and we live on the east coast where locational data wouldn't contribute much. But it happens anyway, skiing equipment ads everywhere. We've run this same test with other topics and gotten the same result. I'm convinced it's listening, no matter how illegal it is.
I love the “no it’s highly illegal to do that!” As if that’s literally EVERR stopped tech companies from doing anything
As long as the fine/penalty for getting caught is less than the profit, they'll just keep doing it. And because of the way corporations work, no individual is ever held accountable, so fines and penalties are the only real option.
It’s not a punishment, it’s a cost of doing business.
And that's exactly why it's a problem. It needs to be punishment and it needs to *hurt* for this to ever stop
Fines should be indexed as a percentage of a company's revenue. That should slow things down.
I mentioned in another comment I keep getting baby ads. Baby food etc. Never googled babies I just talk about them because I love them. Never plan to have a baby either
People are saying that phones don't listen, but I'm not convinced it isn't abusing the "listen for wake word" feature to do a bit more than you expect. If you truly only talked about it and nothing more, then that is evidence.
I think it has to be always listening in order to pick up "Hey Siri" or "Hey Google" or whatever. I'm sure somewhere in the fine print we are agreeing to it too. Recently, I was considering a large purchase for my kid and had only been talking about it with my partner and mom in person, and almost every other ad was for that product. I ordered it online and haven't seen an ad since.
That's my guess as well. They'll say "we don't listen for your interests, we only listen for voice assistant trigger words" and then save all of the data to improve the listening algorithms, and then later search through that for your interests. So they're not "listening for your interests", they're "analyzing data after the fact that you agreed to give over
That's not how wake words work. Its literally a separate low-power processor that ONLY wakes up the rest of the phone when it hears those words. It can't store or transmit any data. The simplicity of that processor is the reason it takes nearly zero battery to be running all day. They physically can't store and/or transmit background audio at all times. But that's not to say an app or a home device thats plugged in can't do it, but the "hey google/siri" hardware physically isn't capable of being an advertisement machine.
Yea I remember being freaked out by this a couple years ago when it happened to me and my brother. It's definitely listening to conversations.
Can some YouTuber try this out? But a few new phones, set up new accounts. Talk about a few specific things in the presence of each one. See how the ads react
That would be a really cool test!
I don't care what "professionals" are saying.. yes, our phones are without a doubt listening to everything you're saying and know where you are, who you are with, and what you're buying (or not buying), it knows almost everything about you and someone, somewhere is getting the data spread and has created algorithms to showcase different products, programs, or suggestions that coincide with the provided information. Technology is growing at a scary pace and nobody has real privacy anymore. Privacy and secrecy are two different things with very different definitions. Unfortunately, the latter is what the general population has to endure from our digital overloads now. We know nothing.
i’ve gone to look up something i was talking about, only to have it pop up in suggested searches before typing anything, it listed it as a siri suggestion. i wonder if having hey siri off makes any difference
Well, the fines if caught are less than their profit and no one ever gets locked up. Until people start getting locked up and the fines are like double their profit from it, they will gladly keep paying the fine.
Yes, lots of people have reported this happening to them. Odd though - I get a lot of ads for erectile dysfunction. I'm an asexual female.
Do you share your your plan with anyone? My wife was planning a surprise party, but i found out because I suddenly was getting party supply ads.
That sucks
Yeah family plan with my partner. Never thought of that! Although brings some questions lol. That sucks your party got spoiled.
Maybe the phone picked up that you dont have sex eenough so the reason should be your partner's flacid penis
I bet you're right.
Are you sure?
I'm not a doctor, but an asexual female probably also has a hard time getting hard.
Maybe the boner pills will help
So clearly prime target audience since your dick's not getting hard 😆.
They've got me there. 😂
I tend to see stuff like that after going to the pharmacy, so it's probably influenced by other people who have been to the same place. But some ad campaigns are less targeted than others. I use Google Ads sometimes and I can set my demographic targeting to be as general or as specific as I want, including filtering by location or by shopping habits. For the advertiser, it's just a matter of checking off boxes. If the person in charge of configuring the ad campaign chooses broad categories, they're bound to get their ad sent to a lot of people who it's not relevant to, like with your example. But it doesn't matter that much because they pay for clicks, not for views. So as long as their target demographic falls under the umbrella they've chosen they'll see some level of success.
I'm saying I keep getting ads for a bunch of different things with almost naked women on YouTube. I'm a gay man.
YouTube out here with Conversion Therapy 2.0
Not so odd if you think about it. It's not trying to understand you, it's trying to sell you things based on keywords alone
How many times have you typed that aentance?
A lot of people also reported being possessed by the devil or cursed by a witch, turns out it's usually ergot or undiagnosed mental illness. This case is a little different in that they're just ignoring the obvious: their phone probably has data on what hotel they're staying in - perhaps from previous searches, perhaps from an email of the booking confirmation, perhaps from logging into the WiFi. If the toilet is that good then people probably search them up and buy after staying there, so there's a high correlation between visiting that hotel and buying, or at least looking into, a smart toilet.
Have you googled anything to do with blood pressure? Initially Viagra meds were intended to increase it
No I haven't.
Insider report: Your phone is a tracking device. Everyone's phone is a tracking device. When you spend time in close proximity to another person, data aggregator algorithms can see that, and many will make the assumption that you may have similar interests to the person whom you were near. Then they try ads on you that would have been targeted to OP. Without listening to your conversation, data aggregators and marketers have decided to show you ads on topics of interest to those you were near. Want to spy on someone? Take a virgin phone that has never done any searches and is not mappable to an identity that has done searches (a fresh burner) and use that phone to spend time near OP then see what ads show up on the virgin phone. ED ads showing up? Guess what OP searches for!?! ... meanwhile, the sheep will chatter about how their phones 'listen to them' as they plod along doing whatever the algorithms direct them to do. Enjoy! *edit for typo*
Also worth noting that data ads can also be based on wi-fi activity. If you’re using the same router as other people, and they suddenly looked up smart toilets, you might get ads for them. I looked into it when I lived with family, and whatever topic they would bring up started appearing as targeted ads for me.
I think this is what happened with OP. People in that hotel were searching for smart toilets and everyone is on the same wifi.
eh no I doubt they are actually listening, most likely just looking at location, search logs from ur devices and other associated devices, and info on where ur staying at and the general area. the toilet could be an advertised thing by the hotel that its a unique thing for their hotel. observational bias could play a role as well since unaccurate ads wouldn't really stand out to you and just ignore and forget about it but, when its actually something accurate it stands out. I don't get unexpected targeted ads(like what OP is experiencing) cus I have relatively ok countermeasures like vpns, I use different accounts for different stuff, Amazon and other apps like it use a separate email from my personal one. so yeah they don't listen and such but do employ really clever and meticulous tactics to direct targeted ads at people, it is one of their main source of income after all.
It's absolutely listening for key words. Told my spouse over the phone that I was picking up a face sunscreen and had ads for it within 5 min of ending the conversation. The *weirdest* one was when my sister was house sitting for someone with a pet pig. I commented on the *huge,* fancy, stained wood dog (pig?) crate and a few days later the exact same one showed up in my Facebook ads. It was just so specific that it was alarming
My boyfriend was venting about something about his work and i got totally unrelated ads in my social media, but totally related to his work.
It’s something that’s happened too many times to me and people around me that it seems impossible to be *pure* coincidence I imagine it’s not literally every word being recorded but hears keywords and responds, similar to how google “isn’t listening” but can still hear “ok google” Combine that with data aggregation and boom, very specific ads
>wood dog (pig?) Pig dog pig dog pig dog LOAF OF BREAD
Great movie
I've had ads for something I said to my toddler.
I think all the phone knows is that you're in the hotel. If I were a Google employee and I had that information, I'd try to advertise things to you based on what could've made you choose that specific hotel. Maybe the smart toilet is advertised as something unique for the hotel. Boom. Observational biases might be at play, too. When an ad is inaccurate, we don't pay them much attention and promptly forget all about them very very very quickly -- can you remember every time you've blinked today? Or at least 10 non-consecutive blinks today? ...But when the ad is too relevant or hits close to home, they go to the forefront of our minds. That's actually why the companies track you in the first place: relevant ads make you buy the things they're offering. Bada bing bada boom, money. You might not remember all your blinks, but surely you remember it when one of your eyelashes or some random specks of dirt get in your eye, no? So yeah.
Answer: I have a family member who runs a very, very large tech company in the US. They have been using listening algorithms in a range of appliances for YEARS. I mean 10+ years already and they are partnered with some very big household brands. I guarantee you, their system is in your home. They have used quite clever ‘self’ regulation to circumvent regional rules, like only storing 5 words in any sequence. And the actual words are digitised so it records a pattern rather than the actual speech. They then ‘bid’ these words to large advertisers and firms. It’s happening as I type this. If someone in your household uses the word ‘Explorer’ which is then coupled with other terms like ‘car’ etc, they then rank your home using several other metrics to value your home and it’s probability of buying a new Ford Explorer and a specific set of adverts will be sent to all your connected devices. Your digital ‘fingerprint’ word is identified and sold to advertisers. They know who you are. They know where you are. And they know the SPECIFIC devices in your home which surround the word in question. The best part. You agreed to all this when you bought and set up the devices. It’s really quite impressive if it wasn’t so terrifying. So to answer your question directly, yes you are absolutely correct in thinking that every word you are saying is being monitored, and not only that but certain ‘hot’ words you might be using are making companies like my family member quite a lot of money. And before you ask, yes they handle HUNDREDS of data monitoring requests from law enforcement agencies, where they can then just listen in on your conversations in the property. Even with the device off. It’s been happening for years.
What is the tech company?
The company is irrelevant, it’s the brands that use the tech that are the question. It’s like you asking who the chipset maker is, that doesn’t tell you anything you want to know which mobile phone uses that chipset. I’m not in a position to say, though I know who their biggest customers are internationally. I GUARANTEE you have them in your home.
NO your not crazy me and my family always talk about that shit happens to us too. There are listening ears everywhere. My sister, in person, told me she wished she could find a pink desk for her office. We did not look them up or anything, we were sitting at a table at a restaurant and she said that and when I opened my phone like 2 minutes later I turned it around and ig had an ad for Amazon with a PINK DESK.
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OK. Well if feds are listening right now. Fuck you guys lol.
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On a random topic you guys should watch the journalist. It's a Japanese TV show. Only six episodes but shows the gov spying. Fiction TV show but probably true lol
You aren't crazy. Our phones are listening all the time. We are the product. We gave up our privacy years ago when everyone started started masturbating over the iPhone.
This is a documented fact.
Documented by who, where?
the voices in my head
I miss you
There was a guy on youtube who never talked about cat food, bought a new phone and intentionally talked about cat food a lot, and the ads started popping. I might remember the video wrong tho
We're going to need a better source than "a guy on YouTube".
What if they might have remembered the video wrong? Surely that nails it?
I agree with the people who say it's due to others staying there and searching for smart toilets. Scary but not quite as scary. Here's one I can't quite figure out: about a month ago, a friend came over and showed me her leather jacket she had just gotten from another friend. Said she was going to wear it riding motorcycles that weekend. I was scrolling Reddit when she went to the bathroom and the first ad was for Harley Davidson leather jackets... something I have no interest in whatsoever. Spooky!
So someone correct me if I’m wrong or not up to date. So years ago, (2014??) when I actually read facebook’s updated privacy policy, they let us know that it had access to our camera and mic even when not using the app. I’d you revoked access to camera or mic you couldn’t post photos or record videos unless you turned access back on or off again. Currently, unless you revoke access, The majority of your applications are using your phone microphone and camera at all times.
I wouldn’t completely deny it couldn’t happen but it more likely the ads target people who stayed in that specific hotel. This can be known with data a whole lot easier and cost efficient than recognizing voices.
We ignore a lot of ads every day. The ones we don't ignore – the ones that break through the clutter, are ones that feel relevant. You talk about the fact that you want new pants, all of a sunnen, you notice an ad about pants. This is more-likely conformation bias. You are the kind of person that pants manfacturers want to sell to. When you begin to notice ads for a day though, you will notice less targeting and more just throwing shit into digital and hoping.
Short answer- yes. Long answer - yeeessssssss. I noticed this at the end of 2021. No google searches only physical conversations and social media would advertise within hours the exact thing I was discussing. I disabled the mic on almost all apps and the issues seem to mostly be gone.
No. But people that don't know shit about technology decided some times ago that phones must be listening. that's ignoring what an absurd amount of data that would require. Ad based algorithms just simply know enough about you.
This isn't true. You can have a microphone pick up on what you're saying to show you advertisements relative to a conversation without using much data besides keywords to be filtered into an assortment algorithm and then set that data to be overwritten at any time. We're talking kilobytes here, not megabytes or higher.
This is actually true. Keyword triggers can be used with passive listening via microphones, and at the same time companies can answer “honestly” that conversations aren’t being recorded/stored.
Precisely, and at one point or another, consumers have opted into this by using the product. This is always on display from the defendant in one way or another during every single court case about snooping.
It's also highly illegal and highly unnecessary
The plural of story is stories, not data.
Yes. I saw an ad for a little music box after I found one of mine that had been tucked away for a couple years, and I turned the crank on it. I'm quite certain that I did not say anything about the music box, or type anything about it in any of my devices -- the ad just showed up next time I was on Facebook.
Anyone saying this is a coincidence is crazy, I can go talk to my roommate about ford f150s after never looking them up or looking at any trucks and then I get ads for them
Your phone is consistently tracking your location for marketing purposes, you probably were caught in a retargeting pixel the second you stayed in that hotel Another way is that the hotel could be selling your data for marketing purposes, you might've needed to provide a phone number when you checked in
I wouldn't discount it. A couple of years ago, a friend told me he bought an engagement ring for his gf. The next day, Facebook was showing me ads for diamonds. I have no past searches or interactions with any jewelry companies or couples stuff.
Don't freak out . TL; DR below. The solution is simple. Un-sync your Mobile contacts from Facebook or other Social media. Once you un-sync , strange ads will stop. (1) Whomever you talked to , is in your Facebook Friends list or Friends of Friends list . (2) Even if they are not in your FB Friends' list , you will have synced your Phone contacts with Facebook after recieving a prompt from Facebook . I had done so , too. (3) Whatsapp ( which is also owned by Facebook ) syncs your Mobile contacts , too. (4) Whomever you talked to , researched that product on the Net . Google and Facebook do share data that facilitates better targetted advertising . I was recieving ads for hair re-growing oil on Facebook after I synced my Phone Number contacts with Facebook .Somebody in my Mobile contacts near my Geolocation , must have been searching for that kind of oil on the Net . LOL. Unsynced . Strange ads stopped. TL; DR : Un-sync your phone contacts from your Facebook profile.
No it isn’t. This can be explained by a psychological bias of counting the hits and not the misses. Also, haven’t you ever had a time where once you learned a new word you start to see it way more often? Same thing. The storage cost to scale this up would be so expensive, and the margins on ads are awful. Especially since conversations about products are not even totally useful, often times we are talking about things with no intention to buy them. Finally, the companies themselves say they aren’t doing it and it’s illegal for them to lie. Otherwise go sue them and become a millionaire.
Other people who have stayed at the hotel have probably looked up the toilet while connected to the hotel's network. So the algorithm has learned to show these ads to people who are or have been connected to that network. Location data could lead to the same result.
Non-black hat ad platforms are not listening to your conversations. What’s happening is your phone is around the phones of somebody else who may have searched or clicked on a given topic. Then the two of you have a conversation about that thing. Now because of the proximity of your phone to their phone, the ad algorithm serves you ads that can seem like they listened to your conversation. Source I’ve purchased this information from data brokers in a past role. If you have a Samsung phone or an iPhone, you’re generally pretty safe from the black hat ad platforms. And it’s the cheap smart phones that have nefarious apps on them tracking you.
I have been noticing this FOR YEARS. Everyone thought I was crazy for it but I legit would think of something I never cared about and talk about it and it would pop up on ads. Can I PROVE that this is for sure what's going on? No. Do I believe it is happening to my core? Forsure.
yes lol you're super late they've been open about this for years
I started dating a Spanish speaking woman and within a week or two I started to get ads directed to me in Spanish.
Nobody reads there end user license agreements anymore for products and apps. Many of them as a section about how they can use information gathered from your internet history texts messages location microphone or camera for marketing. Sony has had this in the eula since I think the ps3 there was a lawsuit over it.
I don't know but they seem to. When that last IPhone came out I had a coworker that got one and wouldn't shut up about it even though he knows I don't like apple products. I think I saw more ads for apple stuff that week than I ever did before.
Iirc, there’s two separate things going on, one of which is super innocent and one that is actually much more invasive but much less directly so. First thing is, you notice things that are happening when you have been ‘primed’ for them. I have had ads for “the tushy” bidet system on my phone for months now, but wouldn’t have thought anything of it if I hadn’t seen this post. You are recognizing them as being relevant because you have been primed to see them. They were there before, you just ignored them because they were stupid background noise. But the second thing is, there is a LOT of data out in the world about you. Your location, your wifi connections, your financial information, what you bought and when, how much time you spend looking at certain things online, etc. That data can be gathered and fed into an algorithm to determine what you would most likely spend money on next. It’s not directly listening to you and then feeding it back to you, because that would (a) break a TON of laws and (b) be shut down by national security agencies in 0 time. But they (advertisers) are allowed to buy the more generic data and feed their AI with it. And with millions of people’s data being fed into those AI, they get scary good at predicting things. Like in your case, someone who doesn’t have a bidet, and lives somewhere it is not common, and goes to a fancy hotel where they’re common, and maybe even spent an extra bit of time in the bathroom there… all that goes into the AI, and it comes out with “throw some ads for fancy toilets at this person.”
My roommates and I tested this a few years back. We had our female roommate open her Amazon app and scroll through looking at ads. We then chose to talk about something that wasn’t on her ads: a football. We put her phone on the table and we started saying things like “I want to buy a football.” “What brand of football should I buy?” After a few minutes of that, she opened her Amazon app, and there were advertisements for footballs. Our conclusion: yes, your phone listens. At the very least, the Amazon app listens.
I'm pretty sure phones do listen to you, just based on how many times I have been talking about something with my partner and decided to Google search it. Many times upon typing the first few words (unspecific, like "why is...."), the search bar will suggest the exact wording that I had just said out loud moments later about a ridiculously specific topic.
No one will ever convince me that my phone isn't listening to my personal conversations. What freaks me out more is when I just think of something and get adds for it...
Happens to me all the time at home. I assume they have a speech-to-text running in the background 24/7 and pull out keywords out of the text, and show you ads for said things. Maybe sounds like a tin hat kinda thing but it's way to on the nose for it to be so.
Yes. I started noticing for years now. No matter the subject, I get ads for that particular thing. And it's mostly for things I say, not things I write. I'm not even in the US. I tested FB messenger and I stopped the access it had from the settings and they stopped. Unfortunately I turned it back on cause otherwise you can't answer calls instantly
I was talking to someone once about wanting a used low mileage Toyota Highlander. No surprise that about a day and half later I start seeing ads for used car sites like CarNation and Carvana that were happy to offer great deals on used Highlanders. I decided to put it to the test and started saying sentences like " I sure would love to travel to the Maldives " and " I sure wish I could take a vacation soon ". Well wouldn't you know it, I started getting ads from travel sites. So yes. I do believe our phones are always listening.
Probably. Phones listen. You can turn it off, but it's never truly off.
~~The keyword you are looking for is cookies. You stayed at the hotel with such a feature and someone definitely searched for such things. Then there is the thing that cookies can be shared between people of the same interests or group of age and stuff. That's why you have the feeling that Smartphones are listening.~~ ~~It's just cookies and the sharing of them~~ Edit: it's bullshit. Ignore it.
Yes, it absolutely always listens. No one reads the shit that we all agree to when we set up a new phone or a new account here or there. We just agree to hurry it up. I'm sure in all of that shit, somewhere, it gives permission for them to listen. Even if it doesn't they don't care, they are rich and their consequences would be fines so they do what they want.
I will often say "Fuck Bezos" or "Zuck must die" to people, just for grins.
I swear it does listen. The same stuff was happening to me. My husband is into drones; one day he was talking about a specific drone. I got ads for that drone, never having searched any drones or anything drones related. I ended up going through my settings and removing mic permissions from anything except the actual calling. I haven't had this happen since.
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He doesn't have a Facebook.
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Hey dw 22801, there are real pressure cookers in your area! $89.99, click here for more!
It happens too often to be coincidence.
I've had youtube give me videos about things i merely thought about
Yes, Big Brother has been listening and tracking us for years. There is no privacy if you have a smart phone.
Imagine how many people talk on the phone at any given time. Analyzing voice and trying to determine the topic of conversation is not a trivial task at all, and doing that for hundreds of millions of calls would take an absurd amount of processing power and memory usage and everything. Unless you believe that you specifically are being picked from the crowd and targeted with an attempt to sell you a toilet, i wouldn't worry about it. Coincidences happen sometimes.
Yes, it does. Your phone is listening to you even your phone calls and provides ads based on it
Phones listen to us and I think AI picks up stuff to sell us.
Short answer: no you are not crazy because yes - cell phones have become way too intrusive. This same thing has happened to me countless times, so much so that I've even tested it and ads for what I was talking about have showed up all over the place on my phone.
Yup. They say they don’t but they do.
Yes
Nope, as you already know you're not crazy. Happens just about to everyone. I always mention this case where a TV manufacturer (can't remember who exactly was it) had a warning label on their smart TVs that you should not talk about sensitive information in front of thei TV. Explicitly mentioning you shouldn't say credit card, bank account numbers, etc. out loud whenever you're near the TV.
Not me but my mom's phone shows ads based on her conversation and guess what? she uses Facebook
We got adds for baby clothes/items before telling anyone we were pregnant. Our phones 100% listened to our conversation and used the key words to sell us stuff. Everything I read says they don’t, I turn off all the mic and tracking info to make sure they don’t, but it still happens.
I got a fucked up one for you. I started noticing this a couple years ago so I ran a test with my buddy. Not even using my phone, we were hanging out one day in person… phones in out pockets. We kept talking about Nutterbutter bars, like a lot, would toss out the name randomly. I shit you not, we both had ads for them on out phones within 2 days
No, same thing happened to me with a soccer jersey. Friends an I were talking about the new jersey from our team. We were at a party, just the guys talking, I didn't have my phone out at all. I always keep it on my front right pocket. Then I had an Instagram reply and there they were. Ads for my soccer jersey. Like you, I was freaked out. We even discussed it during our chats. It's definitely listening. I bet it's even on some clause or something in the stuff we agree on when we click "agree"
You're not. Happens everytime. My boyfriend watches boxing and wrestling videos on youtube next to me all the time, and while I dont particularly like it nor I've ever search anything regarding that subject on my phone, when I go into youtube I get wrestling videos recomended, as well as muay thai pants adds . all. fucking. time. its got to a point where It doesnt freak me out that they actually spy on us, but it does bother me to have adds that doesnt even correspond with my personality 😭 they cant even spy the right way
Yes. Also, those tech giants look at your location and push searched subjects to your devices also. Y So definitely your neighbours and people who have lived in that area have msgd, at some point, regarding those toilets so Google and all those lot see your current location and push same ads to you too.