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I stopped to use smartphones in 2018. Since then I have a Nokia 3310 new model, with Facebook installed. However the wi-fi is turned on around 10 minutes per mo

I stopped to use smartphones in 2018. Since then I have a Nokia 3310 new model, with Facebook installed. However the wi-fi is turned on around 10 minutes per month, in best case. What I've immediately observed after switching to the new phone that I'm receiving more precisely targeted ads. Before, on smartphone no adds were relevant, after the smartphone new adds were all relevant. My guess was the phone / the cellular service company is listening me all the time, not just when talking on the phone. To test it we've started playing games. Sitting with friends, we've used a predefined brand name very often in a conversation. Next day I've got the ads on the social media, on my laptop, I have no other internet device. What I'm doing now? Not using the phone at all. Which means 1-2 daily quick conversation to set up places to meet. For long conversations I use email or messengers. How do I feel? It doesn't bother me at all. I'm not paranoid. I know we are all sold since the blogging era begun. Right now what I can do is to make the lives who exploit data harder in this particular case. Edit: My phone is Nokia 8110 4G, with KaiOs.

superkuh 6y ago
Even if your use a dumb phone with no real operating system or applications if you carry an operating cell phone your location is tracked and stored. In the US this data is stored for 2-5 years minimum depending on which Telco you use. It is used and sold just like in this article. Tracking is how cell phones and cell basestations work. You cannot have one without the other. The better the clocks in the base stations the better the multilateration accuracy. It's already well under <100m. That you turn off GPS positioning does not matter in the slightest. As for listening to you to provide context for what ads to show, I find that supremely unlikely. Probably other aspects of your digital life are also monitored to inform this kind of thing.
- csbartus 6y ago
  The test was repeated many times, screenshots with the next day social media ads were registered. My carrier is Orange in Romania. Just in case somebody wants to reproduce the experiment.
zug_zug 6y ago
If you have full confidence in your theory, you should perform a controlled experiment for statistical significance. Say the name of 20 places on a call (but never you nor any facebook contacts go there) [and have 20 controls you never mention]. Then count ads over the next month. You can conclude something to a certain confidence level if the results show you were right.
- csbartus 6y ago
  That might be the right approach, thanks for the tip. Maybe somebody else will do a better testing. I just wanted to draw attention to the fact non-smartphones / carriers might / perhaps spy in the same way than apps.
smeyer 6y ago
Are you sure that none of your friends are looking up the predefined brand names? Do any of your friends go home and immediately google the predefined brand name?
- csbartus 6y ago
  The first time I was realizing the phone listens to the conversations was Christmas eve, when talking about gifts. One gift came from a global brand. Next day I saw the ads. I didn't googled for sure for that brand on my end nor posted anything on social media. And on my parents' end, who received the gift, I'm pretty sure their internet skills are not enough for a brand search. Anyway, I don't want to convince anybody here, I might be pretty wrong. Just helping others who might have the job to verify all these findings.
mbirth 6y ago
Listening all the time would drain your phone's battery in no time. Transferring those recordings to wherever they're transcribed would definitely show up on your data usage. Transcribing them on your phone before transmitting them would drain your battery even faster. This is more likely plain simple confirmation bias. The ads were there before, you just never noticed them.

superkuh 6y ago

Even if your use a dumb phone with no real operating system or applications if you carry an operating cell phone your location is tracked and stored. In the US this data is stored for 2-5 years minimum depending on which Telco you use. It is used and sold just like in this article. Tracking is how cell phones and cell basestations work. You cannot have one without the other. The better the clocks in the base stations the better the multilateration accuracy. It's already well under <100m. That you turn off GPS positioning does not matter in the slightest. As for listening to you to provide context for what ads to show, I find that supremely unlikely. Probably other aspects of your digital life are also monitored to inform this kind of thing.

csbartus 6y ago
The test was repeated many times, screenshots with the next day social media ads were registered. My carrier is Orange in Romania. Just in case somebody wants to reproduce the experiment.

zug_zug 6y ago

If you have full confidence in your theory, you should perform a controlled experiment for statistical significance. Say the name of 20 places on a call (but never you nor any facebook contacts go there) [and have 20 controls you never mention]. Then count ads over the next month. You can conclude something to a certain confidence level if the results show you were right.

csbartus 6y ago
That might be the right approach, thanks for the tip. Maybe somebody else will do a better testing. I just wanted to draw attention to the fact non-smartphones / carriers might / perhaps spy in the same way than apps.

smeyer 6y ago

Are you sure that none of your friends are looking up the predefined brand names? Do any of your friends go home and immediately google the predefined brand name?

csbartus 6y ago
The first time I was realizing the phone listens to the conversations was Christmas eve, when talking about gifts. One gift came from a global brand. Next day I saw the ads. I didn't googled for sure for that brand on my end nor posted anything on social media. And on my parents' end, who received the gift, I'm pretty sure their internet skills are not enough for a brand search. Anyway, I don't want to convince anybody here, I might be pretty wrong. Just helping others who might have the job to verify all these findings.

mbirth 6y ago

Listening all the time would drain your phone's battery in no time. Transferring those recordings to wherever they're transcribed would definitely show up on your data usage. Transcribing them on your phone before transmitting them would drain your battery even faster. This is more likely plain simple confirmation bias. The ads were there before, you just never noticed them.