Does facebook listen to conversations??
Discussion
S10GTA said:
How do they do it?
I had a conversation in the office today about booking a customer a sit ski. I emailed from Outlook on my PC our supplier about a sit ski. I didn't google it.
Today I get this ad. Facebook is either listening or looking at my emails somehow.
Android phone? Google is listening.. always, and annoyingly you can't block the microphone from Play Services.I had a conversation in the office today about booking a customer a sit ski. I emailed from Outlook on my PC our supplier about a sit ski. I didn't google it.
Today I get this ad. Facebook is either listening or looking at my emails somehow.
Had this happen twice recently. Conversation with a couple of colleagues walking back from lunch where Juniper IT kit was mentioned. I then get an advert for Juniper in my Facebook feed. I don't have the facebook app, the only apps with microphone permission are the camera and Google Play Services which you appear not to be able to turn off without endless errors appearing. It is possible the other 2 have the FB app and one is a FB friend.
Another where my wife was talking with my Mum about government grants for insulation etc, Mum has just messaged me to say she has a advert on FB related to the grants that might be useful, Mum has the FB app and her phone was in her pocket.
Another where my wife was talking with my Mum about government grants for insulation etc, Mum has just messaged me to say she has a advert on FB related to the grants that might be useful, Mum has the FB app and her phone was in her pocket.
Now admittedly I used my phone to look up details of the local Kia dealer for my mum at her house, using her internet connection. Now YouTube is feeing my adverts for Kia. On my desktop PC. Obviously it's picked up the cookies on my phone, either through my Google ID or perhaps Facebook itself I don't know, but I can honestly say I've NEVER looked up anything Kia on this PC.
Yesterday I followed a link in the TV, Film & Radio section of PH to a web site about old TV listings. This morning, on my Facebook page, a suggested group is 'Classic British Television from the 60's, 70's and 80's'. It's not a subject I have ever been interested in previously or looked at or searched for on-line so it's difficult to believe it to be random.
MissChief said:
Now admittedly I used my phone to look up details of the local Kia dealer for my mum at her house, using her internet connection. Now YouTube is feeing my adverts for Kia. On my desktop PC. Obviously it's picked up the cookies on my phone, either through my Google ID or perhaps Facebook itself I don't know, but I can honestly say I've NEVER looked up anything Kia on this PC.
That will be through your Google account. To be expected, as Google own Youtube.
Riley Blue said:
Yesterday I followed a link in the TV, Film & Radio section of PH to a web site about old TV listings. This morning, on my Facebook page, a suggested group is 'Classic British Television from the 60's, 70's and 80's'. It's not a subject I have ever been interested in previously or looked at or searched for on-line so it's difficult to believe it to be random.
Did the site you visited have a facebook "like" button? That was what will have tracked you to that site, not anything listening to you. In 99.9% of these occurrences it is something like a helpful "widget" that the page owner has incorporated into your site that is tracking you. It could be cookies, IP tracking, 1-pixel "beacons", iframes, helpful javascript or if you leave facebook logged in it is simple tracking your profile to that site.They aren't listening. As above, voice recognition is still relatively poor and the processing effort required would be too expensive for the commercial reward - not to mention it would be commercial suicide.
You can stop that sort of tracking (Facebook) by using Panoptclick from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This is a browser plugin and seems to be pretty effective.
This is a browser plugin and seems to be pretty effective.
Order66 said:
Riley Blue said:
Yesterday I followed a link in the TV, Film & Radio section of PH to a web site about old TV listings. This morning, on my Facebook page, a suggested group is 'Classic British Television from the 60's, 70's and 80's'. It's not a subject I have ever been interested in previously or looked at or searched for on-line so it's difficult to believe it to be random.
Did the site you visited have a facebook "like" button? That was what will have tracked you to that site, not anything listening to you. In 99.9% of these occurrences it is something like a helpful "widget" that the page owner has incorporated into your site that is tracking you. It could be cookies, IP tracking, 1-pixel "beacons", iframes, helpful javascript or if you leave facebook logged in it is simple tracking your profile to that site.They aren't listening. As above, voice recognition is still relatively poor and the processing effort required would be too expensive for the commercial reward - not to mention it would be commercial suicide.
hairyben said:
Hmmm - looked at something using an incognito tab, and now my facebook on a different browser at that is showing me sponsered ads for it.
Did that other "something" have a FB like button? Did you log into FB while in Incognito? Incognito tabs are only about tracking your history on your local machine - if any page has a FB like (or hidden pixel etc) then the FB server still gets a hold of the incoming IP address. So when looking to serve ads, it will see what records it has for that IP address and serve ads accordingly.People need to keep a general awareness that browsing the web is a 2-way conversation, your IP address (and more) are transmitted to the other side in order to retrieve every single bit of data you are seeing - its not like TV where it is broadcasting anyway and you chose to only receive.
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