When it comes to the relatively often topic of “they’re listening to you all the time! I was just talking about something in person with my friend and later ads for that thing came up!” I’ve always tended to lean towards the side of it’s most likely a coincidence and confirmation bias… but this article (Marketing Company Claims That It Actually Is Listening to Your Phone and Smart Speakers to Target Ads) makes me wonder how much progress these cursed companies are actually making.
Android & iOS show you when something accesses your mic, but I can see a situation when it happens while you’re not looking or with other devices.
This is what adblockers are for. It is pretty much malware at this point. I hope Europeans do their part and sue them into bankrupcy as deep as the bottom of hell goes.
I know most people affirm it as mere rumor, but i’ve always felt it was true: that our devices eavesdrop on our conversations; or record the casual, flitting sounds hurled around us
Apart from the scarily accurate ads derived from anecdotes, my reasoning for this is exactly what the Cox group mentioned (in the article), that the often vague Terms of Service circumvent current privacy protections
Either way it’s startling and disheartening, and another reason to distrust propriety software