Does facebook listen to conversations??
Discussion
In the same vein, my wife had a slightly freaky but likely coincidental email sent to her today.
For the last 5 years or so I've been trying to persuade her that we should move to France. Usually with renewed vigour around this time of year, as a result of the annual holiday there.
This is accompanied by longingly searching for properties at length.
Cue an email she forwarded to me, from John Lewis entitled 'Dreaming of buying abroad?' and offering great rates on overseas payments.
She's convinced it's no coincidence
For the last 5 years or so I've been trying to persuade her that we should move to France. Usually with renewed vigour around this time of year, as a result of the annual holiday there.
This is accompanied by longingly searching for properties at length.
Cue an email she forwarded to me, from John Lewis entitled 'Dreaming of buying abroad?' and offering great rates on overseas payments.
She's convinced it's no coincidence
IIRC no paperwork was involved, as I say I've thought about this and I can see no plausible way that FB connected us.
I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Johnnytheboy said:
IIRC no paperwork was involved, as I say I've thought about this and I can see no plausible way that FB connected us.
I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
S10GTA said:
Johnnytheboy said:
IIRC no paperwork was involved, as I say I've thought about this and I can see no plausible way that FB connected us.
I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Johnnytheboy said:
S10GTA said:
Johnnytheboy said:
IIRC no paperwork was involved, as I say I've thought about this and I can see no plausible way that FB connected us.
I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.I guess it's possible that he emailed my OH and obviously we email each other. But I'm pretty freaked that FB can connect two users through the email account of someone that isn't on there so easily.
Ari said:
S10GTA said:
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.
So spend an hour on a train and you'll get all the other passengers as friend suggestions? Seems very unlikely...S10GTA said:
Ari said:
S10GTA said:
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.
So spend an hour on a train and you'll get all the other passengers as friend suggestions? Seems very unlikely...Ari said:
So spend a night in a hotel and you'll get all the other guests as friend suggestions? Seems very unlikely...
It knows that location is a hotel/railway station/shopping centre/etc/etc and can disregard those matches.It's entirely plausible that two phones spending time together reasonably stationary in a non-public place could trigger a FB friend suggestion. The phones don't have to be in phone coverage or wifi coverage at the time - they can still log their positions offline and then upload the data later when an internet connection is available. Whether FB are actually doing this is debatable, but it's technically possible to use position reports from people's phones and then process that data centrally.
I have always assumed this is roughly how Apple Map's traffic delay data works on roads that don't have traffic cameras. Your phone notices that you're travelling along that road, but making worse progress than would normally be expected, and reports a potential delay. When several people's phones report a delay along that road, it starts showing as amber/red dots on the map.
Are they listening to your conversations continually? Of course not. Don't be so bloody daft. Have any of the conspiracy theorists stopped to consider the extent to which that would totally murder your battery? That's why the "Hey Siri" feature only works when plugged in and can ONLY hear that one phrase - it greatly reduces the processing power (and hence power drain) while it's listening for that phrase, and can then kick in with the full speech recognition processing when necessary. If it did continual full speech processing then the power drain would greatly increase the charging time for your battery.
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Thursday 13th October 07:54
phil y said:
In the same vein, my wife had a slightly freaky but likely coincidental email sent to her today.
For the last 5 years or so I've been trying to persuade her that we should move to France. Usually with renewed vigour around this time of year, as a result of the annual holiday there.
This is accompanied by longingly searching for properties at length.
Cue an email she forwarded to me, from John Lewis entitled 'Dreaming of buying abroad?' and offering great rates on overseas payments.
She's convinced it's no coincidence
If you log in whilst abroad and talk about a specific country in FB from time to time and connect with people in that country (not necessarily just through FB), it's going to know you have an interest in and maybe connections to that country. For the last 5 years or so I've been trying to persuade her that we should move to France. Usually with renewed vigour around this time of year, as a result of the annual holiday there.
This is accompanied by longingly searching for properties at length.
Cue an email she forwarded to me, from John Lewis entitled 'Dreaming of buying abroad?' and offering great rates on overseas payments.
She's convinced it's no coincidence
Advertisers can choose in the advertising platform to target people with certain interests and demographics. Therefore you become a target if you match those specs.
It's not coincidence that you're targeted, but it's not because they're listening in, either.
Ari said:
S10GTA said:
Ari said:
S10GTA said:
Pretty sure this is to do with location. Two phones in the same place for any length of time and an algorithm works out that you might know them.
So spend an hour on a train and you'll get all the other passengers as friend suggestions? Seems very unlikely...Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff