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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.