Post

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

My playbook for explaining why in general phones are not listening: - Both Apple and Google show an indicator when third-party apps are recording and require the app to be actively used, so third-party apps cannot be listening - Apple/Google can listen (and do constantly, but immediately delete...

if a trigger word isn't activated) but those companies have a lot staked on their reputation, with a high probability of being caught if they did listen. Given those it seems unlikely that anyone is intentionally listening, and the events in the suit were probably accidental and rare.

I think the truth of the matter is the quality of ad targeting that's possible just through apps sharing data on your regular actions within those apps is shockingly high... combined with the fact that it turns out just knowing "male, 40s, NYC" is often more than enough - we're all pretty basic!