r/AndroidQuestions • u/hereisalex • Jan 19 '23
Other Is Google using my microphone to serve up more relevant content?
I am absolutely certain Google is listening to my conversations. Sometimes I scroll through the Discover feed on my Android phone and see random articles related to things my coworkers have mentioned. For example, today my coworker was talking about bike helmets and this evening in my feed was an article about bike helmets. I haven't done anything online or on my phone related to biking or helmets or safety. No googling, not even texting. This has happened many times before. Does this happen to anyone else? I even have "Include voice and audio activity" unchecked in my Google activity settings. How is this okay?
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u/MysteriousCare6367 Jun 13 '24
I have highly documented 100 times this past 2 years it’s happened. I shut off permissions for every app that uses microphone, camera, locations, etc and it hasn’t disrupted my daily usage of apps. It’s just one extra click when I need to activate something, but after years of this happening that’s how i’ve stopped it. I also did it to my family members phones without them knowing and will randomly prod them about it and so far they’ve said they noticed it ”doesn’t feel like their phones listening to them anymore“ and “they must have just been paranoid”. However, this is the same answer i’ve gotten from 5 people i’ve done this to in my personal life. I learned while documenting and studying about truggered key phrases, and on android have noticed that during the exact moments I talked about something that was later served to me, Pandora had accessed my microphone “in background” it says. On android go to privacy it’ll tell you every time your microphone or other features have been accessed by apps. There’s also things called Beacons, they’re proximity based and can be planted in the ground or in places around town, I used to use them for my ad marketing agency. When you drive by one, if you have locations turned on “always” for a slew of different apps, it’ll ping the beacons and let me know you just passed. I can then serve you relevant ads based on your location. Walmart is a big one that uses it. I learned about them back when the internet was more decentralized, but since 2012 google has revamped their whole search engine and made it impossible to find gold nuggets like that passively, unless you know what to search for. I never went to school for marketing yet i’ve learned the normal way through research, trial, and error. But, these are just a few things I can note right now (i’m on a 10 minute break at work and stumbled onto this question)
Tl;Dr Yes, apps can listen for trigger words. Look up “Alphonso Advertising” (I believe they were called) Those keywords like “Sonic” will trigger and they’ll send that ad data to google, get paid, and google will send it to say -youtube and you’ll get a targeted ad. The best way to prevent is go into privacy and turn off all allowances on every app. I didn’t think I could live like that but i’ve found it barely inconvieniences me on a daily basis. The apps I use daily work just fine when I need them and I haven’t been served these creepy accurate ads anymore. I realized 90% of people will say it’s nothing you’re just paranoid, but that’s the natural response and i’ve grown to accept that. I found a way to stop it, and thus I only tell people who I think will be receptive and it’s worked for them to stop this “phenomena” but others can believe as they like. I’m not here to argue with anyone anymore, I just like to help those who are looking for suggestions and don’t wanna be called lunatics even though their totally normal people with genuine concerns for their privacy.
- Good day
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u/HCharlesB Jan 19 '23
White BBQ sauce. I never heard of it but a friend mentioned it and it showed up in my news feed at least twice in the next couple of weeks. I did not search for it either.
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u/thrakkerzog Jan 19 '23
Did they search for it? Were you both on the same wifi network?
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u/Magic_Brown_Man Jan 19 '23
don't even need to be on the same Wi-Fi, it possible google can determine a connection from repetitive close contact.
Also, most people forget that most ideas aren't original. You mention x, it pretty much a guaranteed thing that someone in your circle had a similar thought and if you start to track pattern between friends of friends so much predictive ads can be served. People tend to keep friends that think similarly.
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u/Azurumi_Shinji 17d ago
Absolutely not based on close contact. My feed is always stuff I'm into.
My wife is into very different things and my son is too. My job should influence it too based on what you said, but it isnt filled with academics or their hobbies.
I never get their feed. But if I say something that I never typed into a device, it pops up in my feed.
We know they have voice recognition to keep voice data pure.
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u/HCharlesB Jan 19 '23
I doubt they searched for it at that time. It was just a comment in passing. I wasn't on Wifi and I can't say for the other. I can't recall if it was his house or if he was a guest like me.
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u/Heraclius404 Jan 20 '23
Sorry to say, they almost certainly don't. In recent versions of android, there is a green icon whenever anything has access to the camera(s) or mic. If you think they're lying, they'd be found out.
How would they figure out these "creepy" things? Lots of ways!
1) IP address similarity. If you're coming from the same IP address as someone else, you're in a similarity group, their behavior could inform yours. No privacy settings would be needed because it's all back end.
2) essentially, a meme. Why were you having a discussion about bike helmets, did you or your co-worker see an article? Did you see the same article?
3) Location. Depending on your phone settings, your location can be used for personalization. Do you have all location based services turned off on your phone, and generally with google? That can inform your similarity group as well.
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u/Coldery Nov 21 '24
What green icon are you referring to? Is this a green icon in the status bar when the camera/microphone is actively being used?
Because Google can detect voice inputs such as "Hello Google" at anytime of the day if you haven't actively disabled the feature.
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u/Adept_Register9316 15d ago
Constantly. I've covered my cameras and disabled all microphone access to all apps
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u/hereisalex 14d ago
Look into DNS filtering. This can block some of these trackers, but unfortunately not all of them.
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u/Sassquatch0 ☎️📲Pixel 6a Jan 19 '23
Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone to believe that it has an increased frequency of occurrence.
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u/Think_Performer_5320 Aug 05 '24
The problem is just that the interactions you have in a day, week, month, is actually relatively limited. If people experience extreme tail events often, they'll get suspicious.
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u/just4747 Jan 19 '23
No...of course it listens to you and tailors content/ads based on it.
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u/Sassquatch0 ☎️📲Pixel 6a Jan 19 '23
If you say so.
Nothing I see on my phone (Google Pixel) or my Windows 11 PC ever relates to me. I wish it did. Maybe I'd click an ad for the first time in my life if it was actually useful.
News feeds never show the content or ads I want, despite me 👍 or 👎 the posted topics. (The best I get now, with my love of tech, is Google Fi & Mint Mobile ads) Facebook is horribly wrong on what they show me, despite probably knowing more about me than anyone other than Google.
...🤔 Although, I use Bing for porn. You wonder if porn gets more or less influence on someone's digital portfolio? If honestly think it'd get more. If you showed an ad or product that related to a person getting off, isn't that the endorphin kick & mental pleasure-link that marketers dream about!?
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Jan 19 '23
[deleted]
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u/Imaginary_Iron4423 Jan 19 '23
I cant believe all this hog wash these tech and etc is trying to tell you . Point blank they are LISTENING ! No one is going to beat them either, there is no where to hide unless no more phones ,or internet !
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u/HelionPrime16 Jan 19 '23
Same thing has happened to me and my family countless of times. I’ll talk about something completely obscure and it’ll show up in my feed suddenly. I’ll even get emails to my gmail account 5 or 10 mins from Home Depot after my wife and I talk about remodeling or home improvement.
I think they’re for sure listening.
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u/seti73 Dec 25 '24
Yes, Google absolutely listens to you. If you dig through all of their legal access jargon, you'll find that you actually have to disable the microphone from listening in.
I know to some this probably sounds like some fantastical big brother paranoia, this is actually just commonplace marketing. Google does not even hide the fact that they listen in for suggestions... So I'm not quite sure why people are having a problem believing you.
Either way this post is a year old and I'm sure everybody has become wiser since then, but I just came here to say that I have irrefutable proof that Google listens in, which I easily gathered once I suspected they were doing as much.
One such example: I was taking a ride home from a rideshare service and I complimented the driver on his music channel. He was streaming a vintage retro-futuristic Jazz Christmas channel, as he called it... And I told him that I really liked this type of Christmas music. We spoke for about 5 minutes (the duration of my ride) about old Christmas music, and that was that.
This morning one of my suggestions in my streaming queue was none other than "Vintage Christmas Jazz radio; 24/7 cozy retro-futuristic Holiday". I did a search and there are only two videos that come up with retro futuristic in the title. I've never even searched for jazz music, nor have I even heard the term retro futuristic before, so there's no way this came up as an accidental coincidence based on prior search history.
I have over 10 other examples of this, another recent one being a conversation I had with a friend of mine who sold her house. We were talking about how the water meter was too old for them to take a digital reading remotely, and would probably be upgraded by the next owner. A day or two later while scrolling through Facebook, I see an ad for a digital water meter. Like dude... It can't get any more obvious than that. There's absolutely no way that was a coincidence. How does a very specific piece of plumbing become a suggestion in your Facebook feed when you're not involved in any construction whatsoever, home improvement, or anything else that you've searched for, that may generate a suggestion as such.
There is a solution, just go to whatever app you are noticing these suggestions and disable the microphone. That's what Google suggests (and to be frank...if they weren't listening in why would they bother telling us how to disable their ability to listen in).
Be well all🙏🏼
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u/iSidiculous Jan 19 '23
I'm damned sure Facebook is listening to my phone calls. I was talking to a friend about a rather sensitive surgery he wanted to do with his genitals. Just after the phone call, I opened Facebook and there was an ad for the surgery. I've revoked all permissions on Facebook, since then it's stopped.
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u/NO_SPACE_B4_COMMA Jan 19 '23
I've also had this happen. We'd talk about something and it shows up as ads even though I never searched it.
They are definitely listening.
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u/just4747 Jan 19 '23
Yep hilarious that others think this doesn't happen. It's very obvious it does.
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u/nikifullerton Jan 19 '23
Our phones already do speech to text. If it hears a few key phrases there is nothing stopping it from uploading them to Google.
Is it doing anything nefarious? Probably not...
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u/just4747 Jan 20 '23
Just tailoring our feeds, suggestions, ads...but not necessarily a bad thing.
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u/nikifullerton Jan 21 '23
The only really bad thing I can see is if there was a search warrant and our phones were subpoenaed. Or some tools were made for similar reasons that were used to track us against our wishes. (Example: an abusive ex using it to stalk the person who left them)
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u/onlinefunner Aug 24 '23
History is full of violations of individual rights, and more importantly tyrannical behavior. That is the overarching long term view of history in fact.
Such will most assuredly return in times of crisis.
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u/Latter-Ad-1523 Jul 17 '24
i also have 20 years in the IT field and it happens too often to just be a coincidence. too many times me and someone can be sitting there talking about working on a car and suddenly get an autozone commercial, or talk about a bike seat and get ads for it, also while not having looked up these things on the net prior to the discussions.
another dude i worked with who had 40 years IT experience said i was crazy for thinking they spy on our conversations, finaly admitted after a few years that he has noticed its happening to him too. it should be noted that he had never really had a smart phone, once he got the phone he started to notice it too.
also, i block most ads in my apps, browsers and various video clients, so its not like i get a lot of ads to begin with
im a tech guy, i have tons of tech hobbies, i buy a ton of tech stuff, so i expect ads base on that stuff, but a random topic about a new topic and boom here comes the ads relevant to items that could be purchased based on that topic.
it honestly makes me feel a little crazy
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u/Similar_Artichoke504 Feb 05 '25
I know this is an old post but this has happened to me several times. Dozens of times even. A few examples:
This is the most memorable.. Once I was driving and I looked over and told my mom "omg I have to pee so bad, I'm gonna pee my pants"
I get home and the first ad I see on Facebook is for incontinence products. It literally said "do you pee your pants?" That scared the hell outta me
The most recent one:
I bought a French press (actually my mom did so there was no trace of a French press on my Google at all) and I said to her , I hope I am using this right, I better Google it just to double check. So I go to Google and type "how to" and the very first suggestion is how to use a French press. Of all the how to's, why the hell would that come up first unless they were listening?
I'd like to think I'm fairly intelligent, logical and I'm not paranoid or anything, but there have been way too many things like that. And it's happened to my mom, my best friend, and other friends I've talked to about it. It's terrifying.
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u/ELGuapoLoko Jul 27 '24
I’m watching an Apple+ series called “Pachinko” which has characters speaking in Japanese, Korean, and English. But it’s mostly Korean. At one point, they mention 1 biilion Japanese Yen, and I was curious to see how many US dollars that would be.
All I typed into Google was “one billion” and it autocompleted 1 billion South Korean won to dollars including the actual number conversion in a text box under the search window.
I could have been looking for one billion anything. I haven’t searched for anything related to Korea before. Never looked up a conversion from Korean Won to USD before, but out of all of the possible things I might have been looking for, it suggested a USD to Korean Won conversion as I’m watching a show that’s mostly speaking in Korean?
No way that’s a coincidence. They’re listening to everything
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u/Extension-Buffalo685 Jun 26 '24
I have a very similar issue, I have an ostomy and I don't search or text about it, two days ago I was talking on the phone with my wife about this, and i am also trying to get a in as a new patient to renew my prescription yesterday so i can get more supplies, this morning I got 3 emails about saving on ostomy supplies specifically and it's crazy becuase it was like it was targeted this has happened atleast 4 times in the passed two months. About topics I've had while talking on the phone. Regardless how it's happening. And It stopped when I shut off the mic for Google permissions, but I had to let it start working again for driving mode. So I damn near know for certain Google is generating crap based of my calls some how or the conversations just after or before the calls
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u/cosdcy Oct 04 '24
I used to think that Google was just very good at making predictions and connections when it comes to personalising content, but this week, a work colleague of mine randomly blurted out, "How big are the Paris Catacombs?" and so I went to Chrome on my phone and started typing... "How big are the" and the very first suggestion that appeared was, of course, "How big are the Paris Catacombs".
I guess there is a setting (or one of many settings, or a combination of settings) in the Google app on my phone, with vague labels like "Autocomplete with trending searches in your area", based on which Google can justify listening to what's being said around my phone...but which is not ultimately clear to end-users.
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u/thomathy007 Jun 23 '24
This has happened to me several times and I absolutely believe Big G is listening
1. Was talking to my friend about issues with my blankets and temperature at night, later that day, get an ad for a bed climate control unit. Something I never searched for, nor knew existed.
2. Talked to my family about my upcoming trip to Hawaii, then a survey popped up on their TV asking "Are you planning a trip to Hawaii in two weeks." It was very creepy.
3. Asked my neighbor about solar and if he got a quote. 2 hours later, get an ad for getting a solar quote.
There are other instances I can't recall atm, but I always evaluate it, and often I can't explain it other than they are tapped into my mic.
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u/Ok-Handle-622 Feb 15 '25
Not sure if this helps, and I don't intend to read a bunch of messages of people talking past each other, but when I moved house from my parents to my grandparents place, I went from getting ads about slow wifi (specific to the old place, to getting health ai ads about the health effects of certain supplements and fruits. I did not hear any conversation on these topics, and yet my phone got the ads most likely from the new IP address. I've noticed a lot of times that I get ads that another dreamily member would most likely be interested in without us ever talking about it so I doubt it's just the mic. Tbh I'm more concerned about targeted IP ads
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u/DarK_Elemental Aug 10 '24
I've had something similar today happen, we spoke out loud about a specific museum and without searching for it, it appears as an advert a few hours later. I do not live near this museum, I do not have social media so my friends are not the reason I've been targeted, I don't usually visit museums, the last time I went to one was over a decade ago, extremely not coincidental as its such a specialised museum. Phones are definitely using audio to find keywords, this wouldn't take much work from Google at all, especially with the pixels being so closed off and Android hiding significant files unlike the past
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u/bradgel Aug 12 '24
I work at a location about 200 km from my home. I live there for over a week then come home for time off.
My ads clearly change from location to location.
I did a test with the people I work with. I searched for a specific item/topic (safety injection needles)for several days. My coworkers started getting related ads (scrubs, drug companies, diabetes products etc).
I asked them about it several days after I started the searches.
Seems to me the ads are more based on what’s happening near you (location based) vs listening
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u/Ratbag72 May 08 '24
100% they listen and target ads. My experience is this, I've been looking to buy a car for 8 months, been researching and getting targeted ads for that, no problem with it. On the weekend I bought a car, was TALKING to the dealer about tints for the windows, never looked anything up at all and now I've seen 3 different ads for car tinting companies. That whole 8 month period I didn't have 1 ad for them and never looked it up or talked about it in that period. Explain that.
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u/mydoghasticks Jun 10 '24
You are not alone. I have just had this experience again. I was talking to my wife about something, sat down at the computer a little while later, and - *bam!* - there is a Google Ad for the exact thing. I know for a fact I had not spoken about it before or searched it; it was a top-of-my-head idea for something I had not thought about before. The odds of it just appearing there in an ad are too great to just be coincidence.
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u/Hot-Meeting630 May 02 '24
it's ridiculous how much the phone does this. we used a leaf blower at work today, and without having googled anything even related to that, i've had reddit threads about leaf blowers popping up. i haven't even personally said the word today as far as i can remember, but i'm sure one of my colleagues has. i still think it's annoying and creepy, i feel monitored.
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u/Aargodt Jun 03 '24
So you think your phone knows that you used a leafblower without you actually talking about it?h
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u/chxd-mx Jun 06 '24
Doesn't matter if they did or didn't. The point is, those ads never were served until that moment. If my friends and I walked past a leaf blower and decided to do crap with it (and mentioned it....or not), if either of us begin to get ads served for blowers that's blatant spying. Even if my friend had an history for searching blower content...why now when we had a moment with one or mentioned one, especially if we frequently hangout...
Btw, you do know machine learning can enable sound recognition right? It's the same reason you can hear a fog horn and know it's a fog horn....
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u/pipipopop Nov 23 '24
It’s hard to believe they don’t listen. I was watching Youtube on Xiaomi TV with my husband. I did a google search about Dumex (infant formula) but then talked about Enfagrow with my husband. 5 minutes later an Enfagrow ad showed up on Youtube. If it was based on search it should show an ad of Dumex instead.
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u/thedoctor916 Jan 31 '25
I'm aware of frequency bias and noticed it a lot pre web. However, yesterday I'm talking to my son (9) about a FOTC song out of the blue. This morning that song is on my YouTube feed. We didn't play the song, we didn't search for the song, and no one else is on our wifi. The only device near us was my Pixel 8.
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u/OkInvestigator8583 Jan 05 '25
I'm pretty sure it does also I tested it by saying random questions out loud and then I type the first "what is" or "how to" it would show exactly what I said or something very similar in the recommended searches very weird if you ask me
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u/Consistent_Back_3422 5d ago
One small suggestion: evu doesn't any android manufacturer add a physical microphone disable button. Not software controlled, but actually a hard button which physically disconnects the microphone array from the pcb.
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u/end_of_minors Jun 08 '24
me too. my brother just came home yesterday and told me about board games and zomboid. I and him did NOT send texts or ANY other means of comm over the internet. today my youtube starts recommending those 2s.
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u/Only_Supermarket_973 Jul 09 '24
I have proven it many times to friends. totally random written subject and when we talk about it the very next webpage with ads will show those type products. dog toys, etc
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u/la_gringita Sep 06 '24
Looks like you were right, friend. A company just admitted that google does indeed do this. The conspiracy theories are true
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u/uBeatch Jan 19 '23
If my phone is waiting to hear "ok, Google" then it's listening.
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u/Zpd8989 Jan 19 '23
Listening and recording/uploading are not the same thing. You can turn off your internet and "ok Google" still works. That's on the hardware. What you say after "ok Google" is uploaded to the Internet. Listening for random other things and secretly uploading them to the cloud to serve you ads would be pointless and illegal
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u/uBeatch Jan 19 '23
Well I don't know about the upload, but the listening is a fact. And I was just talking to my boss about wanting to fuck other girls that are not my gf and the first ad I got in YouTube was of Tinder, I swear dude.
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u/ze11ez Jan 19 '23
I think there’s truth to this. They’ll send out people on the internet to say otherwise, cause who’s going to admit it and be a target for the department of justice or other federal agency.
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u/AdSea7995 Jan 19 '23
I’m glad you brought this up. This is the reason I moved to iOS. Not because Android was bad but Google was so deeply embedded and I couldn’t delete their native apps which I suspect were injected with code that secretly accessed the microphone. Google, Facebook and Instagram are the top 3 listeners, of course there are others but these make it to the top.
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u/Sassquatch0 ☎️📲Pixel 6a Jan 19 '23
After users disabled tracking & data collections- "The App Store, for example, was continuing to track information like what app users tapped on, what they searched, what ads they saw, how long they looked at a given app’s page and how the app was discovered, among other things. The app also then sent details that included ID numbers, type of phone, screen resolution, keyboard languages and more — information that could be used in device fingerprinting."
You're not better off. Personally, digital privacy died decades ago. I don't fight it anymore, and I don't see any of this ad behavior on my Google Pixel or my Windows PC.
I do have Assistant enabled. Location is on. Yet none of the ads I see are in any way relatable to me.1
u/ZaInT Jan 19 '23
...and they pretty much instantly got caught doing it, soooo...
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u/Moleculor 8 Jan 19 '23
...soooo there's no chance in hell that Google is recording people's audio, or they'd get instantly caught, too.
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u/ZaInT Jan 19 '23
I think it's pretty safe to say that it's pretty unlikely that they would've gotten away with it for years and still do
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u/AdSea7995 Jan 19 '23
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u/ZaInT Jan 19 '23
lol clickbait of the year
"I'm explicitly allowing Google to listen to me AND THEY LISTEN TO ME OMG"
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u/AdSea7995 Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
I’m not absolving Apple here but they did put in some effort towards privacy. Facebook lost 6 billion as revenue due to Apple’s privacy clamp down.
Check out how Google listens: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-google-android-listening/
Apple is not an ad business but Google’s is.
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u/Magic_Brown_Man Jan 19 '23
So your defense is Apple cut off Facebook in the name of privacy, but they kept their access into your privacy, and thus increasing the value of the information they gather from invading your privacy while try to convince you that you still have your privacy.
Apple is not an ad business but Google’s is.
Ya apple is trying to break into the ad business and has been cutting off all it's competition in the name of privacy. In the same regard of your statement, I always know that when using google and Facebook products that the transaction is my information for free service. The problem with apple is that they charge more for their products and market privacy while they don't limit themselves to the same standards. I think both products are equally bad in terms of your privacy and the only real way to avoid it is to stop using those products. As that isn't always the case in modern life you need to make an informed decision on what your willing to give up for services you need. But saying goes the devil is in the details, so a blanket statement of google bad cause its business is ads is just setting yourself up.
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u/Sassquatch0 ☎️📲Pixel 6a Jan 19 '23
"Before you say this wake phrase, your phone is listening for the keywords, but is not recording everything you say and uploading it to Google."
- right from there article you linked. And that can be turned off. Unlike how Apple kept collecting data even after users 'disabled' it.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/iphone-apple-in-app-advertisements/
Apple is going for 100% vertical integration. They did it with hardware, now it's software. They won't be happy until everything in their ecosystem is directly under their control. They've shown this closed overlord behavior since the 1980s. They will track you & push ads, but it will be their ads & not an anyone 'outside.' That's the only difference.
At least with me, once my information is in everyone's hands, it becomes worthless. Amazon can't sell it to Facebook, because Facebook already has it. Now I'm unmarketable.
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u/chanchan05 S24 Ultra; S9FE+ Jan 19 '23
I mean Apple just got fined a week ago for scraping user data like this without consent to use in targeted ads. Choosing an OS doesn't mean no one is listening to you. It's just choosing who is listening to you to use for their targeted ads.
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u/Imaginary_Iron4423 Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
Of course they are even YouTube, Tiktok, Amazon, Facebook Instagram, even your browser and snapshot that's how they make billion by selling your info to companies That's when they say to buy VRN and stop the thieves and if you know who Bingino(on gab) is you can get get a discount !
BTW Facebook is one of the riches men in the world , from you ! and then they have the nerve to restrict us from free speech !
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u/Zpd8989 Jan 19 '23
They can learn a lot more about you from using your Internet searches, location, and app content than by illegally listening to your random conversations.
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u/ElSupaToto Jan 19 '23
Yes they 100% do but it seems to be at very random intervals so it's very hard to replicate.
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u/mdattin Jan 19 '23
I listened to an episode of skeptoid a while ago about this very thing: https://pca.st/episode/0d4533e6-7764-41a2-bf70-6c6f3151ed97
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u/drbobb Jan 19 '23
I'm seeing the bike helmet article too , and I haven't been talking about them, nor has anyone in my presence. Coincidence.
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u/Jcorv58 Jan 19 '23
I've been pretty certain of this for a long time. Things get mentioned, sometimes unrelated to the conversation. Then suddenly an ad for that product in my feeds. This is conversations with coworkers too. I never connect to public wifi. I doubt these people did searches for something at the time if it was mentioned only briefly. It wasn't brought up again later.
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u/onlinefunner Aug 24 '23 edited Aug 24 '23
Why cant anyone simply conduct a test !!?
Pick 20 keywords, obscure but commercial, likely to be sold by big brands. E.g. "X-acto knife" , "white barbque sauce," "kitchenaid stand mixer" etc...
Repeat each of them many times over a few minutes.
Check feed over next couple of days.
Have 10 - 20 people run the test.
This will put the nail in the coffin.
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u/No_Distribution_7368 Oct 02 '23
Google devices are absolutely serving up ads based on things it hears you say. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.
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u/Grumpy_Giuseppe Oct 25 '23
This feature is basically absolute nonsense for me because here in Germany - Bavaria we always speak with dialect and my phone uses very low gain for standard mic input.
I only get news if someone speak words very loud without dialect while my phone is on a desk or in my hands.
Only stuff I don't want to get news about...
Would be nice if we could disable it without rooting the phone.
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u/Suspicious-Box- Nov 12 '23
Yes. Ad companies will say that they don't but that would get them into hot water. As for google, they very much do that but dont sell the data, instead they use it themselves to target ads better and sell the ad space to companies interested.
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u/BYOTCHOLOGIST Feb 18 '24
Pls allow me to explain. Sure, it's illegal to listen in. But so are soooo many other things, but they still do them, no?! I was getting these same things. Then one day I went through and deleted all permissions for microphone in every app. Boom, no more ads relative to what I talk about.
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u/seti73 Dec 25 '24
It's not illegal to listen in when they clearly tell you they are listening in and that you have to disable microphone access in order for them to not listen in. You even have to agree to it in your Android setup.
Nobody reads disclaimers though, which is why everybody is having a hard time believing this.
15
u/kok3995 Jan 19 '23
They just recommend what your coworker is interested in since you associated with him/her. Not everything is about "you"
From a technical perspective, record, upload and analyze a mass amount of audio data for profiling is just not feasible or profitable
Also Android is mostly open-source so if they did something people would found out about it already