Just a heads up for the addicts of facebook.
http://www.webpronews.com/f...listens-2015-02#moreFacebook knows you pretty well. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Facebook knows more about what you like and how much you like it than many of your friends. Think about it. You’ve been dropping Facebook subtle and not-so-subtle hints for years. You casually “like” Netflix, The Big Lebowski, and AMC Theaters over the years? Facebook knows you like movies. You post every day about diapers, bottles, and naps? Facebook probably knows you have a baby.
At this point, Facebook is really good at serving you ads based on pages you like, statuses you post, and even outside websites you visit. Scary good. If you’re unsure about this, then head on over to Amazon. Search for something you want. Check out the product page. Maybe even add it to your cart – but don’t buy it. Now, head back to Facebook. You see the ad, right?
Facebook is a company that lives and dies by how much confidence it can instill in the minds of advertisers – confidence that their ads are being targeted to the right people at the right time. Because of this, Facebook is always looking for a better way to serve you ads. When Facebook sees that you just liked Outback Steakhouse, that’s a signal equivalent to you saying “I want to eat Outback Steakhouse.” When you like Groupon on Facebook, it’s your way of telling Facebook “I like hearing about daily deals.”
It’s a powerful marketing tool, for sure. Through a series of clicks, Facebook can take a guess at what you like, want, and need. It’s likely pretty accurate, for the most part.
What’s more accurate, however, is literally hearing someone say it.
Here’s an interesting theory, posed by a redditor:
“I have a crazy conspiracy theory and I’m pretty sure I proved myself correct … while you’re scrolling through photos, Instagram listens in to what you say through your iPhone’s microphone to drive targeted advertising through Facebook,” says user popular_rhino in a discussion post on reddit’s r/technology subreddit.
Here’s their story:
I found this out after I saw an ad on Facebook for a club that I had been talking about two hours prior, out loud, to friends in my living room. I thought “well that’s a coincidence, what if my phone is listening to me speak.” I then remembered that less than 24 hours prior, I had granted Instagram access to my microphone, something I usually have disabled through privacy settings.
I also remembered that I was using Instagram when I had mentioned the club. I went back into my phones privacy settings and immediately disabled Instagram’s access to the mic.
So I drew up a test to test my theory- Does Instagram actually listen to my conversation just while scrolling through photos?
I would turn on the mic, mentioning a list of random words that I had wrote down…. Bulldozer, cucumbers, the louvre, Maserati, hiking in the Yukon, African Safari vacation, and a few other random words/terms that had nothing to do with my Facebook interests.
Sure enough, two hours later I was getting ads for Gold Coast Maserati, and African Vacations, also ads for art museums, and climbing.
I did a quick search on Google and reddit to see if anyone else had come to the same conclusion but was unable to come up with anything. Has anyone else experienced this? is it widely known? Do you think I’m nuts?
Nuts? Hardly. Other users quickly chimed in with their own, similar experiences.
From u/SweetPrism:
I’m almost positive this is true. I saw an ad on facebook for Victorian corsets. I mentioned in passing to my friend that I’d like a corset, but not a black and red Hot Topic one, a straight-up old school one. I wasn’t on Instagram, I have not done ANY searching online for them, and there are NONE pinned on my Pinterest, even. And I didn’t even turn on the mic on my phone. There was no other explanation than the fact that they have the ability to turn the mic on for you. This scares the ever-loving **** out of me, and it wasn’t the first time it’d happened, either. It was just one of the examples that stuck in my mind because there was literally no record of me expressing an interest in that item except verbally speaking to a friend
From u/INVALID_STRING_NAME:
So I have been testing this throughout the day using three different phones. I have concluded that Facebook and Instagram are utilizing location tracking and microphone access to provide targeted ads. Each phone I spoke about different things in different rooms, with and without the settings enabled.
Each phone I scrolled through 10 pages. I ensured no background noise interfered and my wife made sure she didn’t talk about anything when the settings were enabled.
Phone 1 – I spoke about House of Cards, Australia, Outback Steakhouse and baby toys.
Phone 2 – I spoke about Biking, Hunting, Laptops and video games.
Phone 3 – I spoke about printers, CCNA tests, Harry potter and getting a new bed.
Sure enough a few hours later I would see ads relating to all of these things. We saw an increase in ads relating to Netflix, Cisco routers… Everything. My wife, my brother and I all removed the applications from our phones permanently. This is the scariest thing ever. This can’t legal. When we gave these apps access to those things I was under the impression it was being used for videos we’d record and post to Facebook and to Instagram.. Not to target ads to us.
We have been doing our taxes and we spoke about social security numbers and all that stuff. Who knows what the person listening on the other side if there are any is doing with that information.
more in the post
