How to stop my phone listening?!!

[GiantTagliatelle]

Ok enough is enough now.

Yesterday DH and I had an important conversation about whether we were happy where we are, what we miss from our childhoods, what we might want to change. As soon as I picked up my phone, there were the FB ads targeting our very conversation.

So I went through my privacy settings and turned everything off that I could… including access to microphone etc for all the apps. And tonight I’m having a conversation with DS about a boy he thinks might be being bullied in his class. Sure enough - the FB ads are there five mins later.

How do I switch these off, and make sure phone isn’t listening to everything? Before anyone asks there’s absolutely no other way it would have picked up these topics to target… they’re not things I’ve talked about any other time and I haven’t done any Google searches on them. It’s purely based on conversations. Help pls!

I have thought obscure things and they have appeared on my phone, I mean like totally random musings, not connected with my usual spending habits.

Yanbu, watching for tips!

could you uninstall FB from your phone and just use it on desktop?

It's probably easier to Google your specific phone. It's easy enough on iPhones. I have to keep going back to check it though. I'm also extremely careful with app permissions.
I rarely get any targeted ads

Do you have Alexa?

I'm interested in the answer to this. I've sort of accepted it as a shitty part of life now but would rather it didn't happen.

Googling or WhatsApp I can kind of understand, it lifts the data from that. But talking with friends about stuff and then finding ads is a horrible feeling.

I don't use Facebook but i get the ads in my main browser feed or on websites. I also have targeted ads turned off anyway but still get them. Doesn't really bother me but it is amazing just how many times it shows things we've been talking about.

Do you have your phone assistant turned on? That's normally the only thing that's constantly listening because it's awaiting a trigger word, just like if you have an Alexa, it's always listening for that trigger word.

Go into settings and turnoff your speaker

Forgot to add, you can reset your ad ID in your Google account settings, so any data it has collected from your device will be deleted and ads from then will be generic as long as you've turned off all the targeted settings both on your Google account and in whatever browser you use

I once worked in a specific department of a hospital for a few months and despite not googling anything related in my phone I started getting FB ads for a related charity.

When I investigated it seemed like it triangulates with the phones around you and geolocation data so it knew the building I was in, the nurses I sat with and their surfing habits.

I read a case of a guy who started getting adverts for his mum's brand of toothpaste. Based on triangulation of her phone at her house and her shopping habits!

Spooky how much of a digital footprint there is out there.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/03/business/marketing-firm-spies-on-you-through-your-phones-microphone-report/