It's funny because we've done this exact testing with the Facebook application on iOS by leaving my friend's iPhone14 with the screen locked next to Telemundo (a Spanish only public television channel) for 24 hours. (Our primary language is Ukrainian)

The next day, all of their ads were in Spanish.

So I do think additional research is needed for certain, the polling rate might be not as granular as you mentioned, but intermittent anonymous data collection like "primary language" could very likely be done passively with minimal impact on battery life, and it may be permissions-based and operating system dependent.

Nice try, I'm still going to wear my tinfoil

"My phone is listening, it knows what I want!"

*Uses social media, doesn't use ad-blockers, and clicks OK to share data with 1472 Trusted Data Partners to make the annoying popups go away*

For “Hey Google”, “Hey Alexa” or “Hey Siri” to work your phone/smart speaker has to be always listening

Then how does Google figure out what music is playing in the background to display it on the lock screen?

I'm very happy to have GrapheneOS on my phone now.

I used to say the same thing, but now I have some serious test cases that are very, very, compelling.

As in: a subject never before broached verbally by me or my friend (or anyone I know, and I don't associate with many people), was discussed by me and my friend in the car, with exactly 2 phones in the car, one of which is de-googled (i.e. Runs a non-Google OS with no Google Play, etc).

Both of us receive ads for that subject the next day.

Mind, neither of us had even thought about that subject before, and it was something way out of left field for both of us - as in not at all related to anything in our lives, and was a complete "shower thought" moment for me.

I get there's a lot of predictive analysis out there, but you're talking predicting something for two people with vastly different lives (we're decades apart in age, for example, in very different fields).

And this ad had nothing to do with our common ground either.

I simply can't buy the predictive analysis on this one.

I've never used any of the usual social media nonsense (it always bothered me, the invasiveness was obvious - Lemmy is my first, and only perhaps a year ago and this particular event was 3 years ago), have zero social presence online - no photo storage, etc, have always kept things separated as much as I can (since the 90's, because we saw the data mining coming back then). And neither of us did any search for the subject, because there was no need - it was a throwaway kind of thought.

I agree with you, it's crazy people still believe this is happening. However the fact that they can collect so much data about you through other means that people believe they're spying on your directly is still pretty fuckin scary.

Ok. Why does Instagram demand microphone access to doomscroll?

https://slrpnk.net/post/12530482

I watched a Jet Li movie in Mandarin with subtitles (on DVD on my TV so not through the phone or any app), and suddenly my search autocomplete is filled with Chinese characters. Ads in Mandarin. Hmmm.

And just to be clear I don't know Mandarin and have no searches or activity related to that at all.

It's also noteworthy that listening to audio via phone microphones is terrible. Speech to text works like shit, and the expectation is that people need to speak as plainly as possible, and over a long period of manual adjustments will it get to a point where it's halfway usable.

Ever gotten a pocket dial from someone? Can you hear anything that even resembles speech over the rustling of fabric? Seems like a wild leap to assume that corpos are listening in on random audio, when the software designed around people specifically speaking plainly and clearly to their phone barely works at all.

Plenty of things to be concerned about with info privacy, but it's important to recognize the limitations of hardware.

• I once joked about getting a divorce, in a conference call. At work. On the company-provided laptop. Minutes later, my own phone's social media feed started showing ads for divorce lawyers. I wasn't married at that time, nor had I ever gotten a divorce.
• Got diagnosed with something I'd hever heard about before. Not a particularly serious condition, but very rare for people my age. Returning home, nothing but ads for medication, self-help groups and what have you.

They are totally listening.

I will use my new roof as an example.

back in February I needed a new roof. I have done zero internet searches for roofs, or related subjects (no searches about materials, contractors, regulations, aesthetics, nothing). My home also has no listening devices, so no Alexas or Google Homes, or any voice activated or automation of any kind. I dont even have any accounts on my phone, google or otherwise. My phone is for nothing but phone calls and text messages, with almost all the google and other stuff that can be disabled, being disabled to make it all the more creepy.

In my home, the first time I mentioned it to anyone aloud was to my grandmother, talking about the issues with the roof and how I'll have to be getting a new one soon.

The only device in the room was my phone. on the kitchen table, infront of me.

I did no searches for roofs or anything roof related afterwards, on any device. Nor did my grandmother (she half blind and can barely answer her phone, much less start doing internet searches about shit)

By the end of the day I had gotten 12 spam mails about roof contractors/new roofs/etc, where I had never received any prior (searched my emails to prove this fact, they go back years)

And every day since, I have gotten between 5-25 new spam mails, pushing every kind of roof related spam you can imagine. Despite the roof long since being done and over with.

And thats not the first time its happened either, Its just what made me start taking notice. It has happened several more times now that I've been taking notice of it.

The phone is listening, and I don't care who says otherwise.

Coincidences can happen, but multiple coincidences cease to be coincidences and start becoming a pattern of behavior and concern.

edit

THEY DO LISTEN https://www.tweaktown.com/news/100282/facebook-partner-admits-smartphone-microphones-listen-to-people-talk-serve-better-ads/index.html

Here's another of my pupper, enjoy

Legislation around what?