Does facebook listen to conversations??

[Terminator X]

S10GTA said:

It links telephone number. Facebook asks for your number for backup, but is clearly using it. I have not entered mine. It's probably been asking for the last 5 years.

Same here although they can probably grab it from the phone if they wanted? Definitely using phone contacts or phone email addresses to suggest "people you might know".

TX.

[Hugo a Gogo]

I got a 'person you may know' who was definitely not in my phonebook, I have no FB friends in common with him, I hadn't searched for him, but i had recently been talking about him with some other friends

he was a mate from before FB days, had moved away and no one had seen him for a few years

[BaronVonVaderham]

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WestyCarl said:

I was speaking to a marketing type over the weekend and she confirmed that facebook does listen in (even when not using the phone itself!!)

She can buy contacts from facebook that is specially targeted using this method. (apparently 3 hits on a similar word is all it needs before you are targeted)

That's not true.

You can spend money on ads that are targeted to keywords that are attached to people's profiles, but fb do not sell contacts to anyone.

Also they do not use the microphone to listen in to generate these keywords. Everything else you do on the site is what generates the keywords/interests that your profile has attached.

The level of paranoia on here is astounding!

Ah, another "expert" who has no understanding of technology

I work for one of the largest Facebook Marketing partners, responsible for millions in daily ad spend

[WinstonWolf]

BaronVonVaderham said:

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WestyCarl said:

I was speaking to a marketing type over the weekend and she confirmed that facebook does listen in (even when not using the phone itself!!)

She can buy contacts from facebook that is specially targeted using this method. (apparently 3 hits on a similar word is all it needs before you are targeted)

That's not true.

You can spend money on ads that are targeted to keywords that are attached to people's profiles, but fb do not sell contacts to anyone.

Also they do not use the microphone to listen in to generate these keywords. Everything else you do on the site is what generates the keywords/interests that your profile has attached.

The level of paranoia on here is astounding!

Ah, another "expert" who has no understanding of technology

I work for one of the largest Facebook Marketing partners, responsible for millions in daily ad spend

So you know how they don't directly target, but it's possible for conversations to indirectly bleed through from the assistive posting technology?

[ZesPak]

I'm no tin foil hat man, but I wouldn't put it beyond them. The fb app has requested your GPS location for ages, to track your movements and people close to you.

But, at this point I believe it would just take up too much data and battery to be realistic.

[BaronVonVaderham]

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WestyCarl said:

I was speaking to a marketing type over the weekend and she confirmed that facebook does listen in (even when not using the phone itself!!)

She can buy contacts from facebook that is specially targeted using this method. (apparently 3 hits on a similar word is all it needs before you are targeted)

That's not true.

You can spend money on ads that are targeted to keywords that are attached to people's profiles, but fb do not sell contacts to anyone.

Also they do not use the microphone to listen in to generate these keywords. Everything else you do on the site is what generates the keywords/interests that your profile has attached.

The level of paranoia on here is astounding!

Ah, another "expert" who has no understanding of technology

I work for one of the largest Facebook Marketing partners, responsible for millions in daily ad spend

So you know how they don't directly target, but it's possible for conversations to indirectly bleed through from the assistive posting technology?

I know exactly how all the targeting works both when using the fb selfseve buying platforms and when using facebook's various APIs.

I also know that what Westycarl posted is 100% incorrect.

[WestyCarl]

BaronVonVaderham said:

I know exactly how all the targeting works both when using the fb selfseve buying platforms and when using facebook's various APIs.

I also know that what Westycarl posted is 100% incorrect.

I guess I used incorrect terminology with "contacts"
However you can purchase "targeted" advertising. I (my Marketing friend) spends with FB who uses the microphone to target these adverts.

Apparently......

[hondafanatic]

Well having discussed this with my better half who uses Facebook, our independent testing has shown a 50% hit rate based on a range of random conversations that were not searched on any device.

For example;

Conversation 1 - we started talking about a ski holiday over xmas. Neither of us can ski, have any desire to ski and had already made xmas plans.

Result: no ski holiday ads

Conversation 2 - I'm apparently short and can not dance. I can't disagree with either point made.

So there you go.

Result: target ads for 'Diddy Dancers'. School of dance for little people. Direct hit I'd say.

[WinstonWolf]

BaronVonVaderham said:

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WinstonWolf said:

BaronVonVaderham said:

WestyCarl said:

I was speaking to a marketing type over the weekend and she confirmed that facebook does listen in (even when not using the phone itself!!)

She can buy contacts from facebook that is specially targeted using this method. (apparently 3 hits on a similar word is all it needs before you are targeted)

That's not true.

You can spend money on ads that are targeted to keywords that are attached to people's profiles, but fb do not sell contacts to anyone.

Also they do not use the microphone to listen in to generate these keywords. Everything else you do on the site is what generates the keywords/interests that your profile has attached.

The level of paranoia on here is astounding!

Ah, another "expert" who has no understanding of technology

I work for one of the largest Facebook Marketing partners, responsible for millions in daily ad spend

So you know how they don't directly target, but it's possible for conversations to indirectly bleed through from the assistive posting technology?

I know exactly how all the targeting works both when using the fb selfseve buying platforms and when using facebook's various APIs.

I also know that what Westycarl posted is 100% incorrect.

"Facebook says this about its use of the microphone: "We use your microphone to identify the things you're listening to or watching, based on the music and TV matches we're able to identify.""

That's not paranoia, that's just understanding what's technically possible.

[BaronVonVaderham]

WinstonWolf said:

"Facebook says this about its use of the microphone: "We use your microphone to identify the things you're listening to or watching, based on the music and TV matches we're able to identify.""

That's not paranoia, that's just understanding what's technically possible.

What you've quoted is a million miles away from suggesting that they use the microphone to listen to actual conversations and/or have bastardised speech recognition software designed to assist users to dictate posts, in order to scrape keywords that are then used to target ads.


Think about it this way, what is more valuable to an advertiser looking to target ads to maximise the return on their ad spend:

A. Keywords generated by actions taken on the site or App; i.e. Liking pages, searches, any activity in the inbuilt browser, etc

Or.

B. Random keywords scraped from random conversations that without context are utterly meaningless

[BaronVonVaderham]

WestyCarl said:

I guess I used incorrect terminology with "contacts"
However you can purchase "targeted" advertising. I (my Marketing friend) spends with FB who uses the microphone to target these adverts.

Apparently......

Well this is PedantHeads isn't it!

Targeted advertising yes, but not using the microphone.

[cdon]

Just incase there is still uncertainty as to what SMART devices are capable of...

https://www.rt.com/usa/371984-amazon-echo-warrant-...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2016/12/28/a...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/12/28/m...

If it has a microphone/camera and an internet connection, you better believe it's harvesting that data.

[All that jazz]

Careful, you'll have Baron along in a second telling you that it's all in your head and you're imagining it all.

Edited by All that jazz on Thursday 29th December 13:44

[Pebbles167]

Ithe definitely listens to a lot. Any links I'm sent, pages I visit or stuff I buy appears on Facebook suggestions. The actual phone calls though, I'm not sure.

Also, since I use dating sites, people I chat to often pop up in "people you may know" despite having no mutual friends or even living close by. Not sure if this is from phone number or info it's picked up from the dating sites.

[hairyben]

Pebbles167 said:

Ithe definitely listens to a lot. Any links I'm sent, pages I visit or stuff I buy appears on Facebook suggestions. The actual phone calls though, I'm not sure.

Also, since I use dating sites, people I chat to often pop up in "people you may know" despite having no mutual friends or even living close by. Not sure if this is from phone number or info it's picked up from the dating sites.

It's possible the other person (or even a 3rd party?) has merged facebook/contacts to link you together.

[BaronVonVaderham]

All that jazz said:

Careful, you'll have Baron along in a second telling you that it's all in your head and you're imagining it all.

Edited by All that jazz on Thursday 29th December 13:44

Just because something is technically possible, does not mean it's necessarily useful

[TonyRPH]

I've been watching this thread with interest, and I can now make a valid contribution.

Neither the O/H nor myself have any social media on our phones.

She uses Facebook - I don't.

However, we were discussing the termination of a maintenance contract for some services we had, and lo and behold - a couple of days later an advert appears on Facebook advertising said services.

The O/H is insistent that she didn't Google any of these services (and I believe her - also checked browser history etc.).

IF... if this advertising was not a coincidence, the only way the information could have been gleaned was via a phone (or computer - but only one has a mic which is muted) listening to our conversation (despite neither phone even having Facebook installed).

I feel this is all a bit "big brother" however, I can relate another story...

I was reading the "Millennials in the workplace?" thread (on a different computer) and today (on a different PC remember) I was recommended a video on Youtube "Simon Sinek - Millennials in the Workplace" - and I've never Googled anything to do with Millennials (I hadn't even heard of the term prior to seeing the PH thread).

And I wasn't logged into any service (Google or Hotmail) whilst browsing either.

So quite how this one happened... (remember - two different PCs - no data shared between the two - that I know of!!) so the info can not have even been gleaned from my browser cache.

My guess is that there is some service, somewhere - that is making a connection but how I don't know.

ETA: I should also point out that in between reading the Millennials thread and being recommended the video - I had run ccleaner on my laptop, and removed all cache and history, so that should have eliminated any possible link anyway.

Edited by TonyRPH on Thursday 5th January 19:07

[Mr Happy]

I've ditched the FB app from my phone primarily because it is a battery hog but also because I don't like the 'thing' that FB has become.

However... cases such as the above where it isn't the FB app at fault could be explained by most modern Android phones listening for the 'OK Google' thing to start voice input. It wouldn't be a massive leap of faith to infer that the phone is listening for more than just 'OK Google', but only makes itself known when it detects that phrase. I wouldn't be surprised if FB ads have some input from Google, hence the "you might be interested in..." type of adverts that seemingly appear after innocuous conversations.

[Alucidnation]

Just been chatting to my wife about buying somewhere on a particular road, no apps open.

just been onto the google pictures thread and clicked a few random links.

Just pressed the back arrow in google maps to go back to the main screen and even though I had not googled it on maps as we know were it is, low and behold, a satellite view of the very road we were discussing is shown.

fk this.

Edited by Alucidnation on Tuesday 10th January 21:04

[GCH]

Instagram also does this now in the form of the sponsored ads in the app.

When talking to someone about about which TV series are currently worth watching the other day, I asked them if they had watched 'Stranger Things'.
Lo and behold, the very next morning (and I notice several times since) an ad for said show appears in my IG feed.

However, it clearly wasn't listening properly, as I did indeed say that I had watched it, but not to bother as it was sh!te



ps. I don't have FB, but they own instagram, so hardly surprising.