I wouldn't be surprised if your smartphone was listening to you, but sadly these particular feats would be feasible simply based on all the information these pe

I wouldn't be surprised if your smartphone was listening to you, but sadly these particular feats would be feasible simply based on all the information these people have been willingly sharing with google/facebook/etc. If a lot of her friends/family are searching for "Motorbike accident, Thailand", it seems likely google would suggest it to her. Similarly, if someone's boyfriend mentions to a third party on facebook something along the lines of "sorry we missed the <event> last night, @girlfriend was having a migraine", it's not so surprising if said gf is shown migraine ads soon after. Bottom line is, I think people vastly underestimate how much private information they are willingly sharing. Sadly, these companies don't even need to listen in sneakily these days.