Eavesdropping by phone's microphone and speech recognition to serve targetted ads by Google? Anyone here had a feeling this happened to them or knows is this already a thing?

Happened to me on my Android phone multiple times over last year on different subjects, that I was talking live with a person, for example how someone had eyelid surgery (my phone was locked in my pocket the whole time and I didn't google search what that is, or made any text input into device whatsoever) and couple minutes later an ad came on my phone for exactly something we were discussing before. Weird coincedence or something more? 🤔

Yes, this is a thing. Also, Smart TV's and other smart devices have microphones and record comments. The only way to avoid it is to become a Luddite.

@M1sf3t factory workers in the industrial revolution destroying machines mostly over the fear that they'd take their jobs.

"a few occassions" in the same number of years?

Its Probably nothing. Survivors Bias i guess. Or whatever the correct name is for this. You will remember the odities and outliers a lot more than the thousands of time it recommended you new sexy underwear, a cpt. Balu fury suit or a model Train size 1:5.

I had happened this to me when talking with the gf about pole dancing (as a sport) and suddenly facebook displayed an add for nearby pole dance studies. The boring truth is that its currently somewhat trending and the gf fits the demographic that can be targeted.

Parallel happenstance. Hopefully. I think there isnt yet enough processing power to analyse words that good. Ever heard the quality of a phone or laptop mic from 2 meters afar? Its horrible.

Also, these services read messages sent from you and your friends services.

So even if you've not written it down, the other party was probably talking to someone else. And the graph traversal gives the advertisement back to you, since you two were talking right afterwards.

Metadata ftw

I only wish Google was that smart and it would stop bombarding me with ads for stuff I already bought.

"Oh, so he just bought a TV online? Let's send him lots of ads about TV-s for a couple of weeks, he perhaps wants to buy some more?"

What year is this? 2016?

It happened to me few times but except for one time I could call them coincidence. That one time I was talking to a friend over whatsapp call, we talked about one of our common friend whom I didn’t hear or think about for over 4 years. Anyway after the call I open instagram and the first person recommended to follow is him.

I think it would make sense to disable mic and cam permissions. Alternatively you could use one of the firewall apps and block a couple of domains. I use NetPatch.

@M1sf3t tinfoils hats are terrible for goverment rays anyway..if anything they would amplify them