>be talking to someone about something >start getting ads on my phone about that something
wtf? is this coincidence or is the not net meme real? freakiest one was I was looking through a car tool catalogue that came in the mail. never verbally talked about it or ever looked it up online then I started getting ads for that same company
No they do listen to you for advertising purposes.
Jason Mitchell
>not blocking all ads
It's the law of large numbers, you see so many ads daily and your human brain likes spotting coincidence. So when you eventually see an ad for something you were looking at recently you make a bigger deal of it than most ads
Noah Hall
more like cohen-cidence
Blake Long
The botnet is everywhere. I don't know how that mail thing happened if you didn't talk about the catalogue though, that really sounds freeky.
Joseph Nguyen
Yeah it's actual coincidence, unless you are browsing for it on jewgle, searching for it with cortana, or visiting websites which certain 'scripts', in that case, it's targeted advertising, facebook being the biggest culprit.
I ran a test. I sat in front of a Windows 10 machine with an Android phone in hand and spoke about various topics for a long time to see if I could generate a change in the ads across a sample of about twenty websites. I got absolutely no results whatsoever, even when I was logged into Google on the PC with the same account I was logged into the phone with. I then got a friend of mine in the US to test it using an Android phone and Windows 7, he got nothing as well. If they really are listening it's something more complex than just using Windows or Android. (Perhaps using Cortana/Google Assistant? Neither of us had those enabled).
Dominic Hill
>IIT: People who don't understand how pervasive the botnets really are.
Where you've been to, who you talk to and how often, usage statistics of your devices, the content you consume, the products you buy (even in-store purchases), sensor data from smartphones, self-censored content (things you type and hit backspace to retract), etc. paint a detailed picture about you and it can predict when an ad is served to you. If you think they're listening to you over your microphone, you really have no idea about how intelligent these botnets are.
Robert Walker
>Things that didn't happen You are insane.
Josiah Cox
Where does this idea that these botnets are intelligent come from? I had to stop being logged into YouTube because it would always just box me in to the same ten videos and it was too stupid to notice the pattern of "always clicks on available unwatched videos". All the data was there in the hands of the same people who were deciding the presented content, yet they couldn't even spot something as simple as that. The extent of their thinking seems to be "Well you watched it once, why not watch it again?". Likewise when I was doing my testing mentioned above I rambled into the mic at length about how I wanted to go on holiday to a particular country, I didn't get any ads for that country I rambled about, nor the country I actually want to travel to. I did however get large numbers of ads for cars, which I can't afford and have expressed my disdain for at frequent intervals.
Justin White
They definitely listen
I got ads for a thing discussed at work that I would never ever allude to or search for outside of work
Hudson Davis
Oh I forgot the other example of this: I downloaded my Facebook interests and sorted them based on whether or not they were actually relevant to me. It was 66% misses and most of the correct ones I had literally liked the page for. For example Steam was there, I have the Steam Facebook page liked so that's just being explicitly told what I'm interested in, not inferring it from the "usage statistics of my devices" or things I type and then retract.
Juan Price
The company that gave the catalog to him probably keeps track of houses they put catalogs in Google Docs/Facebook.
Levi Morris
I was listening to Sean Hannity and he played that bit where he plays a 2 min clip of all the different reporters and media folk saying his name over and over, unlock my phone to Google something a couple minutes later and it starts giving me ads for Sean Hannity's special on Fox or some shit.
Google Pixel btw
Angel Lopez
I was also sitting in my living room talking with my roommate and a friend that was over. We have a Samsung TV and we were playing YouTube, we started talking about Portugal for some reason and when the next video autoplayed it was an advertisement about Portugal. All of us are white and have no connection to Portugal so that was pretty creepy too.
Ethan Walker
if you were talking about something you were likely to search for it before or after your conversation. it's not like they can't listen to your microphone but it really isn't necessary or even effective way to target ads.
This is getting too real and too coincidental. Next day I was talking about web hosting and stuff with a friend. My shit is de(google, facebook, Twitter) but his shit isn't. Today I was using dad's android and I got web hosting ads all over Facebook. Looks like Facebook/google attach conversions to location or IP address and show ads. This is insane.
Carter Mitchell
Blocking ads doesn't even matter. They already have profiled you. Mitigation is to avoid them at all costs if possible. This
Grayson Long
they sure hide the voice recordings well. good thing I gave up the botnet in 2016
Brayden Morris
>hurr durr, everything is random, oyur human brain likes correlating shit Get the fuck back to led dit
Thomas Morris
t. plebbitor
Kevin Anderson
The adds I get seem to think I like cycling stuff. I don't, but the fact that they haven't figured me out yet is still good news.
Facebook thought I was into a TV show that was similar to my friend's name. Fucking brilliant.
Owen Lee
happens to me too. other day i was carrying a bottle of "461" wine in store, never bought, set down, had phone in hand, no picture taking on my end knowingly. That night big "461" ad appears in my browser. never saw it before, haven't seen it since.
Ryder Walker
Have you considered purchasing Salt and Vinegar Pringles?
Gabriel Foster
>*ruthlessly bombarded with Wix ads* Make it stop
Brayden Wood
just what they want you to think no, i don't think so.