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But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in
by jstanley 3y ago
But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.
- iforgotpassword 3y agoAnd that all this information gathering for targeting absolutely matters.
- vkou 3y agoFly-by-night ad networks might engage in this. Ad networks that are in the sights of regulators, and can be slapped with $X billion fines, that may well exceed the marginal revenue produced by improved tracking[1] are going to be a bit antsier around doing that sort of thing. [1] How much more money will a $100B ad business make if they improved tracking accuracy by %1? It's some positive number, but significantly less than $1B.
- consumer451 3y agoWould a top tier ad network be exposed to any liability if the fly-by-night did the sketchy work, then the top tier bought that “anonymized” data?
- vkou 3y agoProbably not direct legal risk[1] if they weren't the ones collecting the data, but integrating with all that shit has the incredible risk that your counterparty might just go up in smoke next week, while leaving you with a busted product, and all the reputational damage fallout. It's picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. You'd have to be a truly desperate PM to consider it. [1] Still all the legal risks of holding that data, but they are easier to mitigate.
- luma 3y agoSo instead they buy that data from the fly-by-night operators and carry on as usual. That's the key problem here, this data only needs to be collected by one shady operator, "the market" will handle the rest.
- afavour 3y agoTwo different things. The popular conspiracy theory is that the phone listens to and presumably transcribes your conversations, sending them to a third party. The example the OP gave is specifically listening for TV content: they’ll have hashes of known ads/shows/whatever to compare against rather than do something like live transcription. Don’t get me wrong it’s shitty and gross. But they are different things.
- tjoff 3y agoThe only reason they don't do that is because our devices aren't powerful enough to do it all the time.
- afavour 3y agoI don’t disagree with you but the fact remains: they aren’t doing it.
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y agoA dedicated chip?
- tjoff 3y agoYes? I'm just glad we are not there yet.
- ehsankia 3y agoBoth iOS and Android show when your microphone is active so the whole conspiracy theory about it always listening to you and sending it back is pretty bullshit. And no one has yet found evidence of such network traffic either.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoTrue, but the theory is far older than the indicators. So maybe Facebook stopped being sneaky once those controls came in? Not saying I believe them, but there's still room for doubt there.
- spiderice 3y agoYour phone notifies you when an app accesses the microphone. If this is happening so much, how is it not blatantly obvious?
- alyandon 3y agoAndroid phones that are 8 major versions out of date because the OEM won't support them probably don't have that feature.
- ehsankia 3y ago8 major versions, that is surely less than 5% of the Android population. I'm sure the security flaws in those non-updated phones is far more serious than the lack of microphone indicator.
- alyandon 3y agoI was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with the 8. However, it is just as valid to talk about unpatched security flaws.
- onli 3y agoAccording to https://source.android.com/docs/core/permissions/privacy-indicators https://source.android.com/docs/core/permissions/privacy-ind..., the microphone indicator is only in there since Android 12. Android 12 and 13 cover only 50% of Android phones, according to https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android/mobile-tablet/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android/m.... There were some "access to the microphone is restricted for background apps" changes earlier, reported for Android 9. But I wouldn't rely on them, and even if those restriction always worked, that still made ~10% of Android phones vulnerable.
- mdale 3y agoIt seems highly inefficient to listen to users 24/7 given the other more specific signals that are available. Rather have a transaction data point around everything someone has purchased then what they talk about.
- Buttons840 3y ago> the ad companies just work out what you're interested in The word "just" doesn't belong in that sentence. The ad companies being able to know things about you without actually listening to you is even more scary. Evil-Ad-Company Neo: "You're telling me I can know things about my customers by secretly listening to them?" Evil-Ad-Company Morpheus: "No Neo, I'm telling you that with the right license agreements, data sharing partnerships, and algorithms, you wont need to secretly listen to them."
- Brusco_RF 3y agoI mean showing you ads for diapers because you googled "best diapers" falls under that same category and I daresay isn't evil at all
- munk-a 3y agoI am pretty convinced that modern advertising - from the most inane and innocent to tracking users 24/7 pretty clearly falls under evil. Gone are the days of advertising trying to raise product awareness and convert purchases - that field now exists to create demand. It induces desires in the recipients that play on psychological factors like FOMO to create customers out of thin air - and that process causes we the consumer to pay a constant attention tax and suffer higher levels of stress in our daily lives. Advertising is evil.
- andrepd 3y agoI'm not a radical about many subjects, but I'm certainly radically anti-advertising.
- iraqmtpizza 3y agoAdvertising is nudge theory without the do-gooder mystique
- sublinear 3y agoYou do realize all forms of media embed advertising directly into the content going right back to the beginning, right? There's nothing modern about it. Showing you a product when you actually want to see it is the most effective way to induce demand. All your favorite shows, movies, youtube personalities, etc. still do this.
- cryptoz 3y agoThat was an official feature of the Facebook app at one point. Like 10 years ago. It's absurd that anyone would deny this. It was right there as a feature! Default off I think. But it was definitely there.
- scarface_74 3y agoI can’t speak for Android. But exactly how does a mobile app turn on your microphone on iOS without you giving it explicit permission? I just did a virtual visit with a doctor that used a video conferencing service that work without an app on iOS and just used Safari. I had to give the page explicit permission to use my microphone
- ummonk 3y agoWhat makes you think they don't get permission from the user?
- thejazzman 3y agoNielsen has sent me about $30 so far begging me to wear a microphone that records me all day. They repeatedly call and have started fedexing me letters instead of USPS. I open them to get my increasing amount of cash. That data must be valuable???
- midoridensha 3y agoPut the microphone on your cat while you're gone for the day.