8 ms·

> It's been a few times now where I've talked with my wife about some new product (physically, in the room) and she starts seeing ads about it. I thought that w

> It's been a few times now where I've talked with my wife about some new product (physically, in the room) and she starts seeing ads about it. I thought that was the explanation too, but it's happened too many times for comfort. The wierdest instance of this is I told my wife her father should consider geting those fixed bridge dentures, next day I start seeing all-on-4 ads on the phone. I asked her if she looked it up (to rule out IP tracking) and she said she hasn't. It's a very random thing to advertise to me, I'm not the target group, I didn't look it up. A lot of it is IP tracking - I'll start browsing for guitars or some other random stuff my wife has no interest in - she'll start seeing ads for it.

StavrosK 5y ago
Yeah but neither of us had searched for that or anything, and I use DDG and uBO so it's not likely it'd be tracked.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  A friend demonstrated me this with her Google Pixel. We talked for a bit about a very conspicuous topic in presence of the phone, and the Google app (which shows a news feed when you open it) started showing articles relevant to the topic within a few minutes. At that point I believed her that her phone is listening, though I didn’t make a big deal of it because she did not make an effort to configure her phone not to.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    I doubt they have such a good recognition model for Greek, plus my DNS blocks Google at that level, and I have a Xiaomi phone. Not that it's impossible, but it's less likely, plus the battery would die quickly.
    - strogonoff 5y ago
      I see. We talked in English, and there was no blocking.
im3w1l 5y ago
There are many sources of errors that people have described in other comments. The proper way to deal with this is a blinded experiment. Preparation: 1. Get two identical phones, one that you use, and one that has a dead battery. 2. Fix a set of product-categories. Experiment: Every week, 1. Label the phones A and B. Use a coinflip to decide whether the working one is A or B. Record which it was. 2. Hand the phone to someone else. They exchange the labels for 1 and 2. If heads A=1, if tails A=2, and record the coinflip. 3. Get the phone labelled 1 back. Neither of you know whether it is working or not. 4. Randomly pick a topic from the pre-fixed list and talk about the topic near the phone. 5. Let the other person remove the labels. 6. Pick out the working phone and go about your day. 7. Write down whether you see ads relating to the topic, yes or no. Analysis: Join the records, to see which weeks you used a working phone, and if those corresponded to seeing ads.
paulcole 5y ago
I work in dental marketing and you 100% are in the target demo for All-on-4. It’s a very popular/trendy service and is being advertised heavily now because it’s profitable, (relatively) easy to do, etc. Good target markets are: Grown adults with $$$ who either don’t have teeth or know someone who doesn’t have teeth (likely parents/grandparents/in-laws). This is basically every upper-middle class adult. More people than you think are missing their teeth.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  Jesus. I see dental protesis ads around the time when I see my parents. I don't have the time to set up the things for them so I'm sure their cheap Android smartphones are surveillance blackholes.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    What other ads do you see when you’re around them?
chillacy 5y ago
Another possibility: switching the cause and effect, e.g. maybe you received ads for fixed bridge dentures and didn't notice consciously (how many ads do we gloss over each day "not paying attention"), but later brought it up because the mind assimilates ads subliminally (arguably the whole point of advertising). This is perhaps even more creepy than just "phones listening in", but it's not an explanation I hear very often.
- pc86 5y ago
  This is a documented effect but I forget the exact name of it so I'm having trouble finding a scholarly article about it. But it's basically how advertising is "supposed" to work from the advertisers' perspective: they get their products/brand to the top of your mind for a given subject.
- reader_mode 5y ago
  It's possible - but this was in relation to a discussion she started, and why show those ads to me in the first place ?
ngngngng 5y ago
You could certainly test this, just have a conversation every day about something random. Pick a snack food, something with a heavy advertising budget, and near your phone start saying things "man I really want some (snack food) right now." If it's listening, you'll start getting ads specific to that snack food, best to try it with a bunch of different products to try and find a pattern.

StavrosK 5y ago

Yeah but neither of us had searched for that or anything, and I use DDG and uBO so it's not likely it'd be tracked.

strogonoff 5y ago
A friend demonstrated me this with her Google Pixel. We talked for a bit about a very conspicuous topic in presence of the phone, and the Google app (which shows a news feed when you open it) started showing articles relevant to the topic within a few minutes. At that point I believed her that her phone is listening, though I didn’t make a big deal of it because she did not make an effort to configure her phone not to.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  I doubt they have such a good recognition model for Greek, plus my DNS blocks Google at that level, and I have a Xiaomi phone. Not that it's impossible, but it's less likely, plus the battery would die quickly.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    I see. We talked in English, and there was no blocking.

im3w1l 5y ago

There are many sources of errors that people have described in other comments. The proper way to deal with this is a blinded experiment. Preparation: 1. Get two identical phones, one that you use, and one that has a dead battery. 2. Fix a set of product-categories. Experiment: Every week, 1. Label the phones A and B. Use a coinflip to decide whether the working one is A or B. Record which it was. 2. Hand the phone to someone else. They exchange the labels for 1 and 2. If heads A=1, if tails A=2, and record the coinflip. 3. Get the phone labelled 1 back. Neither of you know whether it is working or not. 4. Randomly pick a topic from the pre-fixed list and talk about the topic near the phone. 5. Let the other person remove the labels. 6. Pick out the working phone and go about your day. 7. Write down whether you see ads relating to the topic, yes or no. Analysis: Join the records, to see which weeks you used a working phone, and if those corresponded to seeing ads.

paulcole 5y ago

I work in dental marketing and you 100% are in the target demo for All-on-4. It’s a very popular/trendy service and is being advertised heavily now because it’s profitable, (relatively) easy to do, etc. Good target markets are: Grown adults with $$$ who either don’t have teeth or know someone who doesn’t have teeth (likely parents/grandparents/in-laws). This is basically every upper-middle class adult. More people than you think are missing their teeth.

durnygbur 5y ago
Jesus. I see dental protesis ads around the time when I see my parents. I don't have the time to set up the things for them so I'm sure their cheap Android smartphones are surveillance blackholes.
- paulcole 5y ago
  What other ads do you see when you’re around them?

chillacy 5y ago

Another possibility: switching the cause and effect, e.g. maybe you received ads for fixed bridge dentures and didn't notice consciously (how many ads do we gloss over each day "not paying attention"), but later brought it up because the mind assimilates ads subliminally (arguably the whole point of advertising). This is perhaps even more creepy than just "phones listening in", but it's not an explanation I hear very often.

pc86 5y ago
This is a documented effect but I forget the exact name of it so I'm having trouble finding a scholarly article about it. But it's basically how advertising is "supposed" to work from the advertisers' perspective: they get their products/brand to the top of your mind for a given subject.
reader_mode 5y ago
It's possible - but this was in relation to a discussion she started, and why show those ads to me in the first place ?

ngngngng 5y ago

You could certainly test this, just have a conversation every day about something random. Pick a snack food, something with a heavy advertising budget, and near your phone start saying things "man I really want some (snack food) right now." If it's listening, you'll start getting ads specific to that snack food, best to try it with a bunch of different products to try and find a pattern.