To be freaked out a little by Amazon?

[GinNeeded]

I'd heard that smart phones listened in to conversations to target advertising but dismissed it as tinfoil hat territory. People must have googled stuff, browsed etc

I popped on Amazon last night and random stuff I had chatted to the kids about in the day was in the 'recommended for you' section.

Including but not limited to:
*Old fashioned fly sticky strip, liked I'd hung in the kitchen (whats that?
isn't that cruel mummy?)

*Bug zapper ( can we get an electronic fly trap, like a tennis bat)

*Chlorine filter (could we put our pet fish in the swimming pool on holiday?)

*Muffin cases (What can I use to make a rosette?)

*Plastic Sapphires (What are those blue jewels on the real plastic gold pirate treasure?)

None of the above was searched for at all.

I understand targeted adverts, I realise that when I actively go online I am leaving a foot print, but chatting crap with the kids?

Now I am concerned about what else it hears and where that information goes!

We don't have an Echo or voice activated thing-a-me bobs either.

AIBU to not have realised this?

That's a stretch topsy - "that kind of thing" is meaningless.

Out of all the millions of niche products for sale on Etsy are you saying that by coincidence advert appeared for the exact same item? That's less believeable than the phone listening to a conversation imo.

Patti

If you think about it, its not that unbelievable at all.

How many people in the world do you think saw the same advert as you did on the same day? Probably tens of thousands.

Its an almost statistical certainty that a few of the people who saw it would also have seen or spoken about something similar that day.

If you have ever searched on google or etsy in the past for things in the same style as that, it would also have logged online and therefore you would be even more likely to see adverts for it.

People often struggle to understand how statistics work. Its actually very common for seemingly impossible coincidences to happen.

Patti

Just noticed it wasn't you who posted originally, apologies.

The points in my previous post stand however.

I’ve seen similar adverts for unusual ornaments before but I haven’t had conversations about them. There’s only one explanation- I must be talking about them in my sleep! How else would they know to show me that advert without listening through my Facebook app?

I’ll just point out that people pay for ads. Even very small companies and individuals, particularly on Facebook- anyone can buy them. Why would Facebook give ad-buyers a truly exceptional service (targeting towards potential customers that have talked about the item, rather than just basing it on demographic data, cookies etc) but not tell the ad-buyer how famtastic that service was?

When has anyone EVER sold you a service and secretly provided something far, far better without telling you?!

Maybe you need an advert for a logic course justbereasonable, no one has suggested that the only source of adverts is phones listening to people.

How many people in the world do you think saw the same advert as you did on the same day? Probably tens of thousands

The probability argument only works if the ads were random.

The probability argument only works if the ads were random

Can you explain that please?

Adverts are presented to potential consumers in a combination of different ways. Some random and some targeted.

For example if I am an advertising agency I don't want my advert to go to completely random demographic of the population, I will want it to be targeted towards a demographic who are more likely to want to buy that product.

However I also don't want my advert to be SO targeted that literally the only people who see it are in that demographic. Otherwise I will never get any new business or increase the customer base.

You see this happening every single day. How many adverts do you see for products you have no interest in whatsoever? probably hundreds every day, however you ALSO see adverts that are specifically targeted towards your demographic, or even to you personally. Its a combination.

What is happening in the phenomena described in this thread is:

1. People are seeing random adverts that by coincidence are for things they have recently talked about.

1. People are seeing semi-targeted adverts for their demographic (i.e I'm a man, a homeowner and its summer, therefore I'm currently getting a lot of adverts in my feed for power tools and gardening equipment.) Pregnant women will get ads for baby products, people who travel a lot will be getting ads for last minute deals etc etc.

1. People are getting specifically targeted adverts for them based on their internet search history, the search history of other devices on their home network, what they have looked at, even from text conversations they have had on certain sites.

A lot of the confusion comes when people experience:

An incident from category 1 and don't understand how probability or statistics work.

An incident from category 2 and don't realise how 'typical' they may be as a member of their demographic. (we all like to think we are unique)

An incident from category 3 and forget they have searched for something previously, or that it has been searched for on a linked device, or talked about on WhatsApp or something like that.

It really is that simple I'm afraid.

Out of all the millions of niche products for sale on Etsy are you saying that by coincidence advert appeared for the exact same item? That's less believeable than the phone listening to a conversation imo.

Patti I’m afraid I’m somewhat confused then. Are coincidences possible? Because you seem to say here that a phone listening in is far more likely.

Don’t forget you may be being geo targeted too. So you were at a garden centre that sells these kind of things = you might be a person interested in these kinds of things. Which appears to actually be correct. Hence an ad is served to you based on this alongside other demographic factors. It’s very simply explained to be honest.

Also Isn’t there a whole branch of behavioural psychology explaining why people don’t accept coincidences. I’ll look it up!

My amazon is now showing me sticky fly stripes and bug zappers

It won't be long before technology is a basis for crime solving. Maybe the minority report will be somewhat a reality.

Case
A person mentions something very unusual in the presence of their phone which is running Facebook and has been given access to everything on that phone.

Possiblity 1.
Facebook has recognised the very unusual item and served up a relevant advert to that phone.

Possibility 2.
Facebook has coincidentally sent that phone the relevant advert at the relevant time, out of all the millions of adverts that it has available.

If anyone is in any doubt, consult Occam's Razor.

GladAllOver

Are you a troll? Have you read anything that anyone has said about statistics and probability?

{sigh}

GladAllOver

Are you a troll? Have you read anything that anyone has said about statistics and probability?

{sigh}

GladAllOver

I hate to hammer the point, but your complete inability to grasp basic (GCSE level) principles of probability is ridiculous and starting to look deliberately obtuse.

For the millionth time, how many unusual products do you talk about every single day that don't end up as an advert on your phone? I'd probably say high 10s. Extrapolate that out across your entire adult life (365 days a year, call it 55-60 years) and the figure will be in the hundreds of thousands.

With those kind of numbers, its a statistical certainty that at some point in your life, you will talk about something and then see an advert for something similar a short time later.

It'll probably happen to you a few times.

It doesn't mean your f##king phone is listening to you...

Don’t forget you may be being geo targeted too.

May ?

Seems every journey, I have Google popping up asking me to "review my experience" at

I say Pat, you do get worked up.

Calm down dear, it isn't good for you.

Hhm...i don't actually like that sort of thing. In fact we really don't habe any or ornaments. I remarked on it as ours is a little independent garden centre that only sells plants and a few gnomes. Certainly not on any kind of geo radar for such things. I just find it incredible that the same product would be advertised... out of thousands of other knick knacks that could have popped up. Yup I def think it's more likely facebook was listening than that advert appeared completely unrelated.

GladAllOver

Could you give your reasoning for the two points I've brought up:

1. Thousands of employees would be involved- they could gain a lot from whistleblowing on this huge-scale illegal activity but no one has.

1. Facebook, google etc. sell ads to companies and individuals but do not tell them about this apparent incredible targeting powers based on all this audio surveillance. Why would they provide such an incredible service (which would be very expensive due to the risks) but not charge for it? They charge for the base-level, cheaper, standard, and legal 'demographic and cookie'-targeting. Are they secretly giving a superior service for free?

After all, Occam's Razor would say that they clearly aren't doing it.

JustBeReasonable

There is of course no conspiracy whatever. Who suggested it? I certainly didn't.

Facebook uses the data on the phone to serve up appropriate adverts and links. One of those data is what the microphone hears. It's no different to location data or your messages that Facebook reads. Just part of your life that you sign over to FB.

Justbereasonable - you are ignoring the fact that facebook or whoever might be simply researching or testing whether the technology works. No one has to be paying for adverts now, it could be that they plan to charge in the future once the technology can be proven to work.

I quite happily accept that most adverts can be explained by previous searches or shared devices or location detection but my personal experience has made me open to the possibility that there are other reasons as well.

I had a look at the wood item above on etsy and according to their search facility there are 99 items of that description (I don't use etsy so don't know how accurate that is) facebook has over 2 billion active users. That seems like a very low statistical chance of the advert the poster saw being a coincidence, there's not even any proof that the seller of the item has paid for it to be advertised at all. in fact imo it's extremely unlikey that they would have done.

But Patti as myself and others have said before,but is trivially easy to analyse every packet of data sent or received by your devices.

How exactly are the big companies getting this audio data off your mobile without anyone finding out?

@gardeninspiring out of interest how did you mention this unusual product in every day conversation that would allow FB to listen in and identify an exact same product on sale on Etsy (a non related company) and serve it to you.....

As I’ve said I work on the tech side of digital advertising in a large agency. I know how the targeting works inside and out. FB categorically state that they don’t listen to voice through microphone so if they were they would be breaking the law. And thousands of people would be keeping this secret right now. Which as an above poster said seems pretty unlikely

topsyanddim - so Facebook has access to... our actual eyes?! 😱😱😱

Sorry?