My phone is listening...

[Guest]

I’ve just had one “coincidence” too many!
Tonight I watched the Slo Mo Guys. They
mentioned Ken Griffey Junior. I started to do a search typed in Ke... and the first result was Ken Griffey Junior.
What are the chances of that?!

[firsttimemouse]

I'm convinced it listens. I've had adverts for things after I've been talking about something and it's completely unrelated to my search history.

[Beddy666]

It’s true it does. Me and staff were chatting about something and i clicked on to FBook first advert came across was to do with whatever talking about. Then tried on the safari side and it came up on what I was on about.

[colin39]

Heinz baked beans, we sat in a meeting the other day and the guy taking the meeting threw "heinz baked beans" into most sentances, we all thought he was mad. After a 2 hour meeting he asked us to check our phones, gumtree ,ebay, google and the adverts on our phones were for ,you guessed it, heinz baked beans.
They dont just listen i have set my phone in airplane mode, driven around the shops doing the sunday thing, 2hen i get home i checked my tablet, it asked me ro review morrisons,icland, farm foods and costas, all the places we had been too.

[jas72]

Originally Posted by colin39

Heinz baked beans, we sat in a meeting the other day and the guy taking the meeting threw "heinz baked beans" into most sentances, we all thought he was mad. After a 2 hour meeting he asked us to check our phones, gumtree ,ebay, google and the adverts on our phones were for ,you guessed it, heinz baked beans.
They dont just listen i have set my phone in airplane mode, driven around the shops doing the sunday thing, 2hen i get home i checked my tablet, it asked me ro review morrisons,icland, farm foods and costas, all the places we had been too.

See more...

so aeroplane mode doesn’t turn off gps. Hmmm interesting I thought it would have.

It definitely listens was talking to my BiL about vpn yesterday and have been bombarded with FB promos since then.

[dreamisawish]

I'm a disbeliever that your phones actually listen to you, but they collect a lot of data on you in other ways- so much more data then you would even believe!

So for instance Sue with the slo mo guys video google owns YouTube and knows what you watch on there. They also know that the video you watched had a lot of viewers google search for Ken, thus they know there is a correlation. They are then able to predict what you might be typing when you went to type in K. Spooky but that's just how they work!

The GPS thing I can believe more, I've also had specific ads pop up after visiting in store even though I haven't visited their websites. I don't know how this one happens, but it could also be apps that can access your location, like Facebook, maybe selling on the data on where you where to companies so they can advertise. I've set up Facebook ads before on a small scale and you can put in where you want your audience to be located, maybe big companies who spend millions with Facebook can even say where they want there audience to be visiting!

With seemingly random adverts which you think they must be tracking you it could be a while number of things- if someone on the same IP address has already shown an interest in say a VPN you could see more adverts for it, etc. Or it could just be that you have similar interests to a number of other people who have bought VPNs recently, completely random interests that you wouldn't think would single you out.

Once you've 'engaged' with a Facebook advert- by clicking it, reading the comments, watching the video, liking it, then you are immediately going to be bombarded by ads for that product, even by different suppliers, as you seem like you could be interested.

But the baked beans story I have no explanation for! That one is seriously weird, and also such a random product!

I remain sceptical but I would advise people to look into VPNs and disabling cookies, etc, to stop being followed around the internet by these companies.

[fizzypop]

I was having a text conversation with a friend about uni choices our children were making. I then received an email from a uni her child was looking at and the course he wanted to do. Very, very strange as it wasn’t anything my child was looking at so it wasn’t as if we had been on the website and put any details in

[Guest]

Originally Posted by dreamisawish

I'm a disbeliever that your phones actually listen to you, but they collect a lot of data on you in other ways- so much more data then you would even believe!

So for instance Sue with the slo mo guys video google owns YouTube and knows what you watch on there. They also know that the video you watched had a lot of viewers google search for Ken, thus they know there is a correlation. They are then able to predict what you might be typing when you went to type in K. Spooky but that's just how they work!

The GPS thing I can believe more, I've also had specific ads pop up after visiting in store even though I haven't visited their websites. I don't know how this one happens, but it could also be apps that can access your location, like Facebook, maybe selling on the data on where you where to companies so they can advertise. I've set up Facebook ads before on a small scale and you can put in where you want your audience to be located, maybe big companies who spend millions with Facebook can even say where they want there audience to be visiting!

With seemingly random adverts which you think they must be tracking you it could be a while number of things- if someone on the same IP address has already shown an interest in say a VPN you could see more adverts for it, etc. Or it could just be that you have similar interests to a number of other people who have bought VPNs recently, completely random interests that you wouldn't think would single you out.

Once you've 'engaged' with a Facebook advert- by clicking it, reading the comments, watching the video, liking it, then you are immediately going to be bombarded by ads for that product, even by different suppliers, as you seem like you could be interested.

But the baked beans story I have no explanation for! That one is seriously weird, and also such a random product!

I remain sceptical but I would advise people to look into VPNs and disabling cookies, etc, to stop being followed around the internet by these companies.

See more...

Interesting thought about YouTube. I didn’t watch it directly on my phone, DH used the YouTube app on the TV and the account is in his name, but obviously at the same IP address.
I avoid using Google to search. I use the DuckDuckGo search engine (which doesn’t track you), on the Brave browser which blocks a lot of stuff.
We’ve thought about a VPN and may yet use one. There are some concerns about the security of those .
Facebook are certainly good at aggregating data even when you don’t click on ads! 😁

[Mr Tom Morrow]

I think we are being monitored 24/7!

However certain websites get it wrong. I went on to Amazon this morning and in my recommendations it's offering me reduced price Durex.

Now with me being 64 and my Wife 57 they are not much use to us.

[Loulou127]

I’ve had something even stranger that I can’t explain away, a couple of weeks ago I read a newspaper article about equity release, I didn’t google it or mention it to DH, the next day I got an email from an equity release company, now that’s really odd 😏😏