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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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My previous employer - a multi-billion dollar internet search company would secretly listen to people's conversation via their mobile devices then place ads on the same devices (e.g in the browser search results or at the start of videos) based on keywords from the conversations, this had to be kept hidden of course and this large well-known company shall remain nameless.
You sure about that? because if it's Google, that particular method of doing this would be easily discovered.
Also, the scary part isn't that they could do this by listening to your phone, the scary part is that they DON'T need to listen to your phone to do exactly that. Much easier to identify multiple devices coming from the same network (both physical and social), and then figuring out query interests, and then send ads down the same pipelines.
Yeah, people who believe that Google is listening in to their conversations just to sell ads really don't understand a) how pointless that is considering how much they already know about you from the stuff you voluntarily give them, and b) why it's legally not even something they'd consider. If they were doing it and someone discovered proof then the company would be sued out of business. Why would they risk the damage to their rep and finances just to sell ads, when they can already sell ads accurately based on data they've legally acquired
And not to mention the amount of storage and processing power it would take to record everyone's conversations, 24/7.
Google being sued out of business? By the AMERICAN "justice" system, criminal or civil?
If you truly believe that would ever happen, I have a mountain chalet in Florida to sell you.
Ok, heavily fined then.
Regardless, there are multiple reasons why they wouldn't / aren't listening in, and maybe 1 reason they would - to target you with ads? Why would they bother? Hell, my Google Home can't even understand me when I explicitly talk to it to ask it something. Even if they could listen in to everything, they wouldn't get any accuracy.
People just find it a fun conspiracy theory. But if you sit back and think about it for longer then 10 seconds you realise how ludicrously unlikely it is
Can confirm. Used to work for Google. There is no way in hell they would ever do this. Management would absolutely not allow it. Anyone who disobeyed management and did it anyway would get fired. Legal concerns aside, way too much risk to Google’s brand.
Are there any examples of large companies being sued out of business for something like privacy breach? I may be mistaken, because it's one of the common conspiracies that large companies are listening though your mic, but weren't there actually cases like that? With sometihng like FB or Alexa or whatever?
There have been multiple lawsuits about Apple, Google, and Amazon invading our privacy. Here is an example where Amazon is paying a settlement because employees were listening to private recordings of customers:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/01/1179381126/amazon-alexa-ring-settlement
I've seen those, but my comment has been more about the
Because I don't think that has ever happened.
There's a big difference between some people at a company unlawfully accessing customer data (which is basically what this is), compared to it being a secret company policy to harvest all that data to use for their other secret business practices.
Security of those microphones is a genuine and legitimate security concern. But that's a very different situation to the conspiracy theory that 'Google / Alexa is listening in to everything we say so that they can put an ad in-front of us based on the name of a product that they overheard',
There aren't, they frequently only get a slap on the wrist for this kind of thing. It's a cost of doing business to them.
Does it rhyme with "Frugal"
It could also rhyme with Blamazon
It could also rhyme with 'my cock soft'
i think calling bing a search engine is an insult to the term search engine.
Depends, if you're looking for porn it's quite good. Or so I've heard.
Internet search company
Is it the one that reminds you when your microphone is off when you say the key phrase?
Ah, well if it isn't the exact reason I sold my google nest/ mesh routers the same day that I bought them! Imagine voluntarily placing microphones around your home owned by some shady corporation.
They had a physical off switch for the microphone, but could still somehow remind you that your mic was disabled when you talked to it. Cool. Very cool.
I thought you were better than that Jeeves.
That's because you didn't ask.
I've had a suspicion for a few years about this phenomenon. I know that simply recording audio and transmitting it for processing to serve ads is a violation of the federal wiretapping laws. I know they know it too.
So do they get around it by doing the processing locally on the device? So the phone effectively has tens of thousands of wake words that are trained for different things. "I want a big truck" -> phone parses that out "big" "truck" and sends those words up to ~~google~~ in a keyword dump. So technically it isnt wiretapping. Right?
Plus, it avoids the security researchers who use wireshark to monitor those devices. They are looking for audio streams, not a keyword dump that is encrypted and can be sent asynchronously at a later date in a much smaller file size.
How would they know that because you mentioned a thing, that it means you're then worth targeting a ad for? "I wish i could find my fork", or "I saw someone eating a Mars Bar" or "My mate Phil just got the new Lego Batmobile" or all sorts of conversations that just mention a product in passing. What, do they have a secret set of phrases that they're listening out for that is linked to an intent to want to buy it?
It's just so far-fetched that I'm baffled that people truly believe this is actually happening.
Just because technically something might be possible, doesn't mean that there's actually a valid reason for anyone to actually do it. What is actually in it for Google to do this? Their regular, not unethical or illegal advertising processes already work so spectacularly well that they've killed off entire advertising industries already.
Can I Google their name?
The other day I decided to rewatch trailer park boys . Watching on a Roku tv with Plex . The next day I get an ad for the trailer park boys app or something. There's no way it's a coincidence .
Lemming learns the idea of a wifi "network" and that devices on that network communicate with each other
We know its Google.
Can you explain more, because the way this is written I'm not sure how they would do that technically.
Assuming this is Google, I could maybe see it with things like Gmail. Text is easy to scan and ads in things like Youtube videos are dynamic so they could be doing that. Same with something like Microsoft and Outlook.com.
But listening to actual conversations (as in phone calls) at a large scale and then using that to put dynamic ads in videos or search results seems impossible to do at scale.
I can't explain more because I just made the whole thing up. That's right, I told a lie on the internet
Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening? I don't want to ditch my smartphone and use a fliphone tho
grapheneOS.org
Just don't talk about stuff, write everything down or use hand gestures and you're good 👍
That requires on-device AI to avoid suspission from mobile data usage and OS admin rights to hide the light, or a "excuse" to why its on.
Even if you cant name them, go ahead and let others, connect to tor, create an account with a burner email service and post their insites on the matter.
Dont forget, they can hold all the physical buttons at once until the screen goes black, and head to the local library
Also, try out a de-googled pixel somtime (graphine,lineageos,etc...)
sus
I would more surprised if a company doesn't do that nowadays
Can't you just say the company?
How are they going to know it's you? Especially when what you're saying has been said 1000x before.