In September, I was using reddit, had an iPhone, etc. I was generally aware of digital privacy, probably moreso than the average person, but by no means was I knowledgeable.

I was running a beta on my iPhone at the time, for context. I had a short conversation with my roommate while my phone was in my pocket. I took it out to text my partner and pressed the dictation button. My phone proceeded to type out the majority of the conversation I had had maybe five minutes earlier with my roommate. Literally ruined my ignorance is bliss and now I have a Pixel with grapheneos and use almost exclusively open source software with a major focus on privacy. Obviously this is an anecdote from some idiot online and I can't verify what I'm saying at all, but the experience definitely shook me.

I once worked in a charity providing mental health services to people without insurance, or who wanted to not have their insurance record the service for whatever reasons.

I once had a homeless man that I would see regularly. We set up each appointment at the end of the preceding appointment, because the only other way to get a hold of this person would be to call the fast food place he worked at, during his work hours, which weren't consistent. This man did not own a phone, or any other electronic device. His facebook, and all of his online activity was done at his local library. I emphasize this because I need it to be stressed that there was no way any algorithm could connect his location to mine. There was no way for a system to recognize that his device was near mine, because he did not have a device. There was no way for any of his online habits to be algorithmically connected to mine, at all.

One session, we're speaking. The only devices in our small, sound proofed room, were my cell phone, a digital clock not connected to any system, and a digital camera, turned off, and also not connected to any system. He mentions that he's been contacted by someone who wants him to move to the Phillipines. We briefly discuss flights and work in the Phillipines. Then we move on to other things, yadda yadda, end session.

By the end of the day, I'm getting ads on Facebook for flights to the Phillipines. Freaked me the fuck out because those sessions are HIPAA protected. From then on I kept my phone turned off, and in a completely different room in our building than any of my sessions with any patient. Never ever had it happen again.

Apps listening to your mic to give you targeted ads is an urban legend. There's tools to see which apps listen to you and there isn't any evidence that any of the popular stuff ever open the microphone (unless you're in a call or something). If you're too worried about it, you can always turn off the mic permission for the app.

The ads are actually coming from other ways of tracking you like browser fingerprinting to follow what things you browse and build a profile on what you like/are interested in.

See also EFF's article on it: https://www.digitalrightsbytes.org/topics/is-my-phone-listening-to-me

Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World

The comments here show the real problem, adverts dont have to say why they've been selected.

All online ads should have to say which filters they matched to advertise to you. The advertising in most cases now is centralised into Google or Facebook, this is absolutely technically possible.

"Is it Apple though, probably not..."

Can I ask, why are you so ready to performatively forgive them here? Apple is not your friend, Apple and Tim lined up to donate the million like the rest of those greedy, transactional cowards.

Apple doesn't "do" it per se, instead Apple shares certain data with third party partners for the purposes of "improving your product experience" the data is then laundered 17 times through middle layers and added to a shared digital fingerprint of you and your household's web of connected devices. You and your family are then sold on a marketplace as advertising targets actively interested in X category or product (Apple is also subsequently a customer in that marketplace). You then either receive that advertising or your family is targeted with it so that they can then casually mention the product back to you (company knowing you were already interested) so it feels organic and "I was just thinking the same thing!" and boom, you're buying that new set of pots and pans.

We're already living in the matrix, you're just a little drone being pinged around according to other people's will, to support the pursuit of endless growth. So yes, in a way companies are spying on you... After you've given them individual permissions to access your microphone and permission to share "certain data" about you with third parties, in a carefully orchestrated dance - so that they have plausible deniability and so you don't have to threaten your parasocial relationship with their brand and can continue saying "probably not Apple though..."

Forgive me if this is here already but this is how your post showed to me.

Believe it, don't believe it, some people believe the earth is flat, and 5G gives you cancer

404 Media previously reported Cox Media Group (CMG) was advertising a service that claimed to target ads based on what potential customers said near device microphones. Now, here is the pitch deck CMG sent to prospective companies. Google has kicked CMG off its Partner Program in response.

I talk to my father on the phone.

We finish.

I receive ads for a very specific thing that we talked about that I’ve never ever looked up.

Same thing with my therapist.

We talk. I receive highly specific ads.

I've literally seen advertisements for products that I was talking about but explicitly did not search for or type or anything on any device. All I did was talk about it in real life.

It's literally a thing that happens, I have seen it happen first-hand.

Using your search data is bad enough

Instagram showed me an ad for a medical condition I only discussed out loud, in person, in my doctors office.

Instagram was immediately uninstalled that day.

ITT:

People saying “They already use every other bit of data they can access, why do you naive optimists think they wouldn’t use the most obvious one?”

vs.

People saying “They already use every other bit of data they can access, why do you naive optimists think they would need to use the most expensive one?”

I think we will need a few more lawsuits such as Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its virtual assistant, Siri, recorded users' conversations without their consent before this is no longer treated as confirmation bias or people been paranoid.

My wife used to tell me that her adds would change after discussing something and at first I did not believe her, but it just kept happening again, and again. It reached the point that we would put our phones away, discuss something and there is no change in ads about the topic. If we had our phones near adds would change.This would happen on things that we would not see adds for normally. For example we would discuss a trip to a place we have never been and she would start seeing adds about the destination after that.