Whatsapp messages leaking information ?!

[rak5a]

So my sister whatsapped me yesterday to ask if I had experience with Revolut or Monzo cards. Now this morning while scrolling Twitter I get targeted ads for, you guessed it, Revolut and then Monzo! I know big brother is watching everything we do online and that Mark Zuck owns WhatsApp but surely there is a setting to make them not read my messages and target ads based on them? Please let there be a setting!

Or perhaps Revolut and Monzo have started a targeted ad campaign towards women of a similar demographic (presuming you and your DSIS are similar demographic)?

I'm not 100% sure but if you go into Settings >Privacy >Tracking, in there, there should be a list of all apps who have asked to track. Toggle Whatsapp to No if you get me?
May not work but it's all that I can think of.

Pretty much every app you install will request permission to track activity across other apps when you have installed it. It's one of those things you sort of absentmindedly allow when you're asked. That's the only way that I know how to undo it.

Thanks @JetTail but weirdly WhatsApp doesn’t even appear on that list. There were a few I mistakenly allowed to track so thanks for pointing that out as I’ve blocked all tracking now. But that still doesn’t explain this connection. I’m on Twitter every day and promise I’ve no recollection of being served these ads before. It’s definitely linked to that convo I just wish I knew how so I could stop it!

@rak5a
I've had conversations about pretty obscure suff ( phone is nearby ) and lo and behold I get ads related to the conversations a day or two later.
😱

It could be Twitter that's tracking then, rather than Whatsapp. If you've turned that off, it might work. Otherwise, try uninstalling Twitter and then reinstalling and carefully read the fine print when reinstalling and see what the T&Cs are and whether you have the option to opt out of all but the necessary cookies.

I have no "Permission to Track" apps on my phone. It is switched to off.

It would be twitter doing the tracking on WhatsApp. They don't ask to allow others to track, they ask permission to track others so it would be Twitter rather than WhatsApp on the list.

It’s all done through your op address and what passes through

if someone in your house logs onto your WiFi and searches for something obscure then you can guarantee it’ll be advertised to others on the same WiFi within days

Have you Siri? I think Siri will listen and anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law 😂. I'm pretty sure when setting up the phone, it asks something like 'Allow Siri to record information in order to improve accuracy?' or some such ambiguous language.

People say it's ridiculous and this doesn't happen but I'm not so sure. Far too often adverts pop up after I've been messaging about stuff or even chatting about things.

Also, despite the fact I turn off location tracking, adverts for X near W(here I live) keep coming up.

It's easy to think that we are being monitored.

And unnecessary permissions is another thing.
I download some stupid match 3 game or some such shit from Google play and it wants access to my contacts, permission to make and receive texts or calls or whatever, delete stuff, view stuff, access my camera. What possible reason could a daft game have to make a call or take a photo?

I think it's mainly about harvesting information to be able to better sell us to advertisers. I must admit though, I'm not sure why they need photos. 🤷‍♀️

I much prefer targeted ads than the ads I get say watching tv of stuff I'm not at all interested in.

I'm the same! If I'm in the market for a new laptop for example, all I have to do is google 'laptop for sale' or whatever, and then I will be bombarded with ads for laptops for a week or so. Saves me googling lol

Depends on your phone but on Samsung it is listed in privacy as 'Android personalisation service' with a toggle.

WhatsApp messages are encrypted end to end, so it shouldn’t be that.

I watched a programme once though that said your phone isn’t listening, it’s worse - it knows where you go, who you’ve been with, who you spend most of your time with, your demographic, what you look at online, what the people you spend time with look at online and with all of that data can guess the conversations your having.

so it’s possible your sister was Googling Monzo, your phone knows you spend a lot of time with her so you might also be interested in it.

It's more likely that your sister has put them into a search engine. Phones aren't just tracking what you do. They track what all your contacts are doing too. Your sister googling Monzo and Revolut means all her close contacts of a similar demographic are probably now also getting ads for them. That's why people think their phones are listening. They're not, they're actually far more sophisticated than that!

This all makes sense but my god is it depressing!