IS THE INTERNET LISTENING ?????

Dragging this one back up. I get a bit of a chuckle when ads pop up and I can directly trace it back to a particular event. Sitting here working and scrolling. Jennifer Garner pops up in my newsfeed...never talked about Jennifer Garner, never googled Jennifer Garner, never even particularly cared for Jennifer Garner. Then realized the channel I have playing for background noise...is a frickin Jennifer Garner movie. Phone heard ‘Elektra’ and associated the names???

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It happened to me the other day. I told my wife I needed one of those windshield sun screens....Sure enough, I get an ad on my phone for them. Believe it or not that was the first time that happened to me. I don't particularly care for that. Yeah, I know we get listened to but I don't like that it's blatantly obvious.
 
UTfball68 said:
Dragging this one back up. I get a bit of a chuckle when ads pop up and I can directly trace it back to a particular event. Sitting here working and scrolling. Jennifer Garner pops up in my newsfeed...never talked about Jennifer Garner, never googled Jennifer Garner, never even particularly cared for Jennifer Garner. Then realized the channel I have playing for background noise...is a frickin Jennifer Garner movie. Phone heard ‘Elektra’ and associated the names???

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That's probably not through audio (listening), its that the streaming service you getting the movie from has allowed metadata to be scraped by Google or whomever to use to push out ads to you.
 
RatLabGuy said:
That's probably not through audio (listening), its that the streaming service you getting the movie from has allowed metadata to be scraped by Google or whomever to use to push out ads to you.
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I won’t pretend to understand how this stuff works...but for those that do...1) It was Spectrum/cable 2) movie was on for about 15 mins before I saw the ad on FB 3) do robots work after 11pm
 
I’m certain they listen to audio as well. I’ll never be convinced otherwise.

Several months ago I was over and my friends house and we talked about camping. He asked if I’d seen the Solo stoves, I said “yeah those are awesome I just seen them the other day I’d love to have one too”

I never searched it, never clicked on anything, nothing like that. Simply talked about it and ever since then I have adds for that thing all over FB and IG and everything in between. That’s not the only thing I’m certain I only talked about and then seen adds for shortly after.
 
My wife was watching a YouTube video on her phone the other day. There were ads for Google before the video and the ad kept saying "Hey Google" and asking questions. Her phone went bezerk trying to keep up because the phone heard "hey Google"

Not really spying, but was funny as hell to me.
 
77GreenMachine said:
I’m certain they listen to audio as well. I’ll never be convinced otherwise.

Several months ago I was over and my friends house and we talked about camping. He asked if I’d seen the Solo stoves, I said “yeah those are awesome I just seen them the other day I’d love to have one too”

I never searched it, never clicked on anything, nothing like that. Simply talked about it and ever since then I have adds for that thing all over FB and IG and everything in between. That’s not the only thing I’m certain I only talked about and then seen adds for shortly after.
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My buddy and I did lunch 10 days ago (according to the time stamp)...for whatever reason a dude from high school popped up as a topic. Haven’t even thought about him for 15 years. A couple hours later he pops up in my ‘people you may know’...couple hours after that, apparently I popped up in his too.

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Orrrrr... you just ditch the apps that listen to you (ahem, Facebook, Google assistant, etc) and disable mic access when not needed, and setup your bowsers so they deny cookies or at the very least erase data after closing.

Surfing the web w/ my government PC is kind of humorous, b/c it blocks all of that, except for what it can pick up on the exact immediate session, everything else is deleted. So if I have a tab open shopping for some kind of weird tool and then do a search or FB or other thing w/ ads, it's 100% that exact same thing everywhere b/c there's nothing else to go on. Makes it all very transparent.

UTfball68 said:
I won’t pretend to understand how this stuff works...but for those that do...1) It was Spectrum/cable 2) movie was on for about 15 mins before I saw the ad on FB 3) do robots work after 11pm
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When you use that box to get the channel from Spectrum, it sends data back to them telling them what channel you are watching (and probably a history of what you've been doing recently). They sell that data on your history to FB, who then puts the ad into your feed. It's a pretty simple feedback loop.
Unfortunately there are almost no streaming services or any way to get content, besides good old over-the-air TV, where they can't/aren't tracking your viewing for the sake of ad sales.

Oh and yes, the beauty of robots is they don't need a nap.
 
Was in a meeting at work talking about level 5/paint spray machines. Which one we should get etc.
Looked at Instagram that evening and this popped up.
Same brand we were talking about.

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Van-go said:
Was in a meeting at work talking about level 5/paint spray machines. Which one we should get etc.
Looked at Instagram that evening and this popped up.
Same brand we were talking about.

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Just get a Titan sprayer and buy it from me :D
 
Van-go said:
Was in a meeting at work talking about level 5/paint spray machines. Which one we should get etc.
Looked at Instagram that evening and this popped up.
Same brand we were talking about.

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@Van-go
Not to Hijack the thread but I am looking at a job I need someone to level 5 after WC removal here in Charlotte. Sent a PM
 
Yes.....therefore I'm probably on some secret watch list as a gun toting, shine drinkin, bible beating, long arm Neanderthal Trump supporter.......

When I couldn't be a more plain common sense middle, ground cracker!
 
Turn on your bluetooth and it connects with your phone laying inactive in another room ...... yes .... it's listening.
They are listening, watching, taking notes.

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A friend of mine just got Alexia/google automation thing and was showing off with it at his house this past weekend. My 9 yr old pops up and says ‘Dad doesn’t let us have those things because he says the government is spying on us’ *facepalm*. Friend’s wife spent the rest of the evening trying to convince me that either no one is listening or that our personal data is already so public that it doesn’t matter, even if they are.

I don’t subscribe to a lot of tin-foil-hat-thinking, but having worked with the government previously in a security-related job, I believe it is plausible that they are indeed listening.

On the fb ads thing, wifey and I had a convo on the way back from the beach about boats parked at a dock. I used the word ‘yacht’ once and got yacht ads for two weeks after.
 
Andy J. said:
I don’t subscribe to a lot of tin-foil-hat-thinking, but having worked with the government previously in a security-related job, I believe it is plausible that they are indeed listening.
Click to expand...

My wife is employed by a very large computer company in the A.I. division.

They are indeed listening to everything ("they" being complex algorithm based auditory sensors listening for key words, very similar to the word scanners used online to zero in on particular conversations)
 
Yeah, this chit is crazy, But it also makes Christmas shopping for your wife super easy. Wife was talking about a certain wine opener she wanted...I tried to remember the name, went on IG and add popped up for the exact wine opener, so I didn't have to guess or ask her again...so it makes me seem like I really do listen.
 
The irony that this pops up in the news...
Is your phone listening to everything you say? :: WRAL.com

Having recently updated to iOS 13 and the ability to hobble FB and a few other apps from tracking by location and Bluetooth has made a difference in the ads I do see.

in case you’re wondering (and I recently just found this out) many apps are tapping into your Bluetooth even when the app isn’t open or in use. I always wondered how FB would show “people you may know” and we have no common other than I happened to be near them for work purposes one day.
FB doesn’t get to use Bluetooth or location, microphone anymore, it’s bad enough it associates the people I do know to others I may.

Bluetooth is off on anything at home when we are not there, I have no “smart” devices other than iPhone, do not use Siri
Not because of paranoia but the ad tracking is crazy. It’s reduced some since I've turned everything off, bur still present.
 
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