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I know my devices are (probably) not listening, but I can't explain it either. Neither of us searched for the product or saw it online or anything, we just disc
by goatinaboat 5y ago
I know my devices are (probably) not listening, but I can't explain it either. Neither of us searched for the product or saw it online or anything, we just discussed something and got ads about it a few minutes to hours later.
It's probably statistical to a certain extent: people of your specific demographic are interested in a certain thing, and you are talking about it the same as all of your peers are, and a statistically significant amount of your peers did Google for it such that now Google assumes that anyone in your demographic will be interested.
Of course that only metas the problem up one level, which is that Google knows enough about you to do this kind of analysis a) on your cohort and b) on you.
- vcavallo 5y ago> Google knows enough about you [to not even have to bother listening] Right. This was is actually much more alarming to me. Whenever this topic comes up in conversation I point out that the fact that the most attractive-seeming explanation is “they’re listening”, but they actually _aren’t_, should have one even more concerned.