• deranger@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    How many times a day are you shown ads that are completely irrelevant?

    Me personally, I’ve never once experienced the “they’re listening to my mic for ads” phenomenon. I think someone would notice by now either by seeing increased upload usage or a hot device- at least with current technology. On device machine learning will make this much easier to analyze without having to upload audio.

    Not that I don’t think it’s entirely possible to listen right now, I just don’t think it’s occurring to unimportant people. I’m not particularly important or rich nor is anyone I know. It seems much more plausible to me that we’re just seeing conventional web tracking get a lot better + a healthy dose of confirmation bias.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      It’s certainly possible. I do get ads that don’t seem relevant for me pretty regularly. But this last time I’m referencing: one of the first ads I saw that night was for our discussion topic.

      I’m not disagreeing with you, so I’ll just mention it’s safe to say: whether it is digital fingerprinting or mic listening, the surveillance level is absolutely off the charts.