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Simon Willison
@simonwillison.net

Huh oh. As a committed anti-conspiracy-theorist for the "phones listen to your microphone and targeted ads based on what you say" thing I can tell this is going to be exhausting

parker higgins@xor.blue

I think probably 95% of speculation that your phone is secretly listening to you is overblown, but man the tech industry really does not do itself any favors with that 5% arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

arstechnica.comSiri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95MApple users may get $20 each for up to five Siri-enabled devices.
John Dye
@mrjohndye.bsky.social

I was in the "this isn't happening" camp for a long time. A few nights ago, I mentioned custom home builders. I did not look them up, neither did my wife. I haven't looked into it for months, maybe years. Next morning, I'm playing a game, up pops an ad for a custom home builder.

Simon Willison
@simonwillison.net

My answer to that is always the same: humans are pattern matching machines We are unable to consider the billion incidents when we talked about something obscure and DIDN'T see an ad for it shortly afterwards, but just one coincidence will convince us forever

3 reposts31 likes

Scott Jenson
@jenson.org

Exactly this. As someone who used to work for Google, that type of activity would be completely off the table. It's simple: if you do something that stupid, it's only a matter of time before you're caught. The PR blow back is a million times worse than any ad revenue you could get.

Bartek Ogryczak
@vartec.bsky.social

I kinda trust that Apple doesn't intentionally do it, as they're not really in the ads business. I can believe Google doesn't do it on the system level. I don't trust that dozens of apps though, especially companion apps from some less reputable manufacturers.

Bartek Ogryczak
@vartec.bsky.social

I mean can you say with absolute confidence that Samsung's app doesn't? Or the Best Buy app that for no apparent reason needs microphone access? Or companion apps for dozens of Chinese consumer products? It's within the realms of possibility that none of them are spyware, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Joop Kiefte (LaPingvino) 🟙
@joop.kiefte.eu

Yeah, my case was on Android several years ago, for sure. They can even used an at the time undocumented backdoor. They have this Messenger overlay so they can extend permissions to basically all the time "legally" too...

Bartek Ogryczak
@vartec.bsky.social

iOS and Android have locked down app privileges in recent years. So you or I running the latest version probably aren't at risk. A lot of people do run outdated versions though. Also if an app asks for access to the microphone and the user grants that access, no amount of OS security helps.