Topic: You are the product. Corporations spying on us deeper than we thought? - page 6. (Read 842 times)

while it is true that most companies track your activities in your phone, it might be reaching to say that your phone was listening

it could’ve been just a coincidence and most likely it is
a lot of people agree on things they don’t even understand especially on the internet most people don’t even read terms & conditions before clicking accept or choosing to accept cookies in a website anyway the point is all apps have some kind of system where it can see you and what you like or what you dislike sometimes this proves useful as it allows you to curate your feed but sometimes it gives you more ways to spend (advertising)

You consented to that somewhat. There is an app there somewhere that you agreed to the terms and conditions. Either that or some app on your phone is actively recording whatever is happening on your phone's surroundings to push you ads that are based onnthe conversation it picked up. It's nothing new, that's why in shopping apps, I disable the camera and microphone access, because it's weird for an app to request for those even when they do not need the functionalities given by those parts of your phone.

As much as privacy is concern, but the moment we decide to use these smart phones, note that it has its connection to an app store. It has its monitoring device that keep us tracked, so the more we tend to use it, the higher chances that our actions and responses are being in controlled or monitored by them. Even if we disable these location services or remove these unnecessary apps, that will not guarantee that we are still not monitored by them.

For me, the best option is to turn off your phone when you are conversing or making an important transaction. That is the best way not to indulge your own privacy.

That's the most terrifying part: no brands or exact models or names were mentioned. My guess is that my phone scanned the area around it and located the phone of the other person, identified him and his car. The car was identified correctly as Mercedes has at least 3-4 different key types and the ad on my phone suggested the EXACT key I held in my hands. That's not a coincidence. This is some next level spying.

Is this anything new though?
I'm pretty sure that we've know for a long time that free services such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ande ven Google etc. make bank on selling our data to advertisers.

The more successful these corporations are at targeting you with ads right on your interests, the more likely it is they'll be picked by those being advertised.
So keep this in mind next time you sign up to another website.

Thankfully, GDPR kind of helps in this regard. Allowing people to delete their accounts and recall all their data along with any permissions they might have given in the past helps restore some balance in terms of privacy.
But most people will be tempted to actually ask for their account deletion on big platforms, as it would also require an account deletion and these platforms are kind of monopolizing access to their info sadly.

You are not overreacting but this is how the algorithm goes when they've heard some specific brands, they're going to send you a blast off of those ads that are related to the brand or product/services that you've mentioned. Actually, there have been a lot of memes about this and if you a regular tech guy that understands this, you'd definitely expect to see food ads just after speaking about your favorite tacos, pizzas, etc. We use their services and platforms for free and if things are for free then you must be aware that we're their products being sold to their advertisers. This is how it goes and became a norm, if you don't want to get into these algorithms being done to your phone and to your accounts in social medias and search engines, much better not to use the internet. Because if you're aware of cookies, the internet cookies, then that's just one of the many that they're doing to all of their users and that's how they make money from advertisers and users that enjoys their platforms. What I do, I reject those cookie permissions, disabling recording if they ask to and even putting some blockage to my front camera which is common to laptops.

I'm not a security expert, but from several videos on YouTube that I've seen, several IT experts who work for security say don't just give permission (when installing the application) to record conversations and audio, sometimes malware can infiltrate from there, they also say that If you suspect that your smartphone has been infiltrated by malware then you can see that one of the symptoms is that your cellphone battery runs out quickly, that's because the installed malware APK is constantly active, there are also some security experts who say just use Huawei because it's safer than American products, I not so sure, we must be able to protect our privacy as best as possible, don't just activate the internet on your smartphone when you are using your smartphone for personal activities.

That is why it's essential to not give apps a lot of permissions such as recording and camera especially if that app won't even use those things for it to function. It's been known that Google, Meta, and Amazon use your device's recording capabilities to allow for a more personalized ads that you are more likely to be lured at. Ever wonder why companies pay Google big bucks to use their Google Analytics platform? There's a lot that these corporations can do because we allow them to, albeit unknowingly, of coursez since most of them are hidden in layers of text that a normal person won't likely read anyway.

As much as those companies deny that level of surveillance, it has gotten to the point that it is too obvious this is the case and people are accepting this as fact, so what to do? If I am not mistaken there were some phones that were released that had the option to physically disconnect the camera or the microphone by flipping a small switch, but I do not think much success was had as the phone was too expensive and people were not willing to pay extra for this feature.

I cannot find any record of search engines admitting to listening to our conversations but there are far too many occurrences of it happening and very distinct part of the world for it to be a mere coincidence.

When we understand that data is the prize and everyone is looking to get more and more of it to out-intrude their competitiors, when we do this we begin to break down the walls of limitation we put in place.
I have had cases were I randomly talked about an old friend to another old friend, and Facebook recommendsnthat exact friend to me. This is just one of many cases and it happens with regularity to indicate that voice data is being monitored and collected.

Most people will think like that, assuming that their cell phone is eavesdropping on conversations or as if they are spying on them, and that kind of assumption is something that is normal, but I think that is too much, and it is true - sometimes it is by chance when we want an item or product. Often times advertisements for products and goods suddenly appear. And I think this can happen because sometimes when we want something, we often see reviews and explanations of the product via social media or search via web searches. And maybe that's what causes advertisements for the products we want to often appear on our cellphones.

And the exact reason why we get or see advertisements appear is that the advertisements seem to correlate with what we are talking about and what we want. This can happen because most technology and marketing companies work together to collect a number of people's personal and behavioral data.

these corporations are smart, they do look at your search history. and they can come to some very smart conclusions

let me put a lil square of tinfoil on my head
samsungs own privacy terms website page:




when it says "samsung doesnt share with external parties" it does not say "samsung and samsungs business partners do not share with external parties"
it also doesnt say "samsung does not share with business partners"
so you can see how data does escape samsung servers by reading what it does not say

its that old lie families tell each other..
brother does something wrong like spy on the neighbours daughter and puts the evidence in sisters room. sister then uses it for other nafarious purposes that negatively affects neighbours daughter.. like sends picture to everyone at school
when confronted. the brother says "i didnt do it i dont send pics to classmates"

when certain phone services say they will record using phone mic "to learn when commands are triggered" and then they have other terms that say they "gather data to offer better service and improve features reliability". and then say they share gathered data with business partners..  join the dots

..
the best way to really test if your voice assistant is sending non voice command mic recording conversations in your proximity to external advertising businesses.. is to purposefully think up a couple of words completely unrelated to your life(things you wont search for on phone)
and have conversations near your phone multiple times for a few weeks

EG if you have no interest in history or animals and never search for them. specifically start talking about jurassic park franchise/merchandise
EG if you dont have kids. talk about baby clothes, toys, diapers, strollers,
EG if your young talk about retirement villages

Ok, everybody knows we are being spied on by the corporations like Google, Meta, Microsoft etc. That's a pretty well-known fact and is generally accepted by the public. However, I started noticing some alarming facts recently: I am being offered stuff I mention while I'm on the phone. Then, I noticed they're offering stuff I mention while chatting with my family while the phone is located somewhere in the room.

Finally, what's really scary, today I was talking to someone (while my phone was nearby) regarding a car key. I started using my phone a bit later and I was shocked to find out there's an ad containing the very same Merc key we were discussing and I was holding in my hands! Then suddenly I realized this is not the first time something like that happens. Which means that the phone is listening? (recording?) to our conversations and possibly also filming the whole thing?

Can we discuss it? Perhaps I'm overreacting or being paranoid and there's a simple explanation for this?