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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Tested this a while back, had me and my gf talk about kids like where going to have one and all that but never got any baby products before and never typed or asked any electronics about anything related to it.
Within like a few days we started getting ads for babies and expecting parents.
It's solid proof there always hearing us.
there was actually a study performed a few years ago that didn't find any evidence for several thousand tested apps to listen on you (some of the scummy ones were caught recording screens, on the other hand). also, the company mentioned in the posted article admits that their claims were exaggerated.
It's a solid anecdote, for sure.
Absolutely not "proof" though. Unless you made absolutely sure to not accidentally look at a photo on social media of a baby for too long, or scrolled too slowly past a YouTube reel aimed at kids, or listened to a baby shark trap remix on Spotify.
We have LLM models that can give you (mostly) accurate data on how to do a given task based purely on their ability to guess which word comes next from the sources being fed to it, and you don't think algorithms exist to extrapolate your potential buying habits based on the aforementioned data points?
I've gotten very specific targeted ads before that were completely wrong, just because I'd watched like one YouTube video about the hobby or something. It's really just a prediction algorithm based on the troves of data our use of digital devices gives them.
Or happened to be in the same place as someone who is looking up this type of thing (for example coworkers, or patrons of a park you visit often.)
In reality, the other data that can be gathered is more useful and easier to work with than trying to parse audio and video all the time.
Plus you'd absolutely see that traffic on your network, especially if you lived in an area where you only get like 5Mb/s down.
I have ads blocked on nearly everything, but when I was at a client where they are not blocked, I got an ad for something I was talking about the week before. Don't remember it, but it happened exactly as you said.
A popular podcast in brazil called Brainstorm9 did the "bowl experiment", where everyone of the members talked about wanting to buy a bowl but only using their voice, they all started receiving ads for bowls, and I bet you never received a bowl ad since it's not a thing people often search for online.
I know people say they there are studies, etc, but I agree with you. My husband and I both don't like Taco Bell. There were zero searches for it, we never talked about it, etc. So we decided to test it. We started saying Taco Bell multiple times in different sentences.
Guess what suggested options popped up when we hit "T" into google or maps? Yup. Taco Bell
Definitely not because most people use Maps for locating a restaurant, which most likely you do as well. Not because taco bell is the most common restaurant that begins with "T."
Nothing about these comments even hints at establishing the controls necessary to get accurate data on your phone mic spying on you. It's all anecdotal and based on the knowledge about what information apps are able to scrape, seems like none of you guys really understand what they have access to.
I just press 'T' into google maps and Taco Bell is on there. I haven't been there in years nor can I recall even talking about it in a very long time.
All right, fair. Maybe Taco Bell wasn't the best test. I'll keep that in mind for the next time
Or, you know, Taco Bell pays to be promoted.
Fair point
What came up before you test when you typed in T?
It was a year or two ago, I can't recall. But probably something like Target