Ad Technology Listening in?

Ian

Ian

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The BBC has an interesting article regarding some spooky co-incidences where people have been talking about a product or event, only to be shown related advertising somewhere on Facebook or other platforms:

Facebook has always denied using smartphone microphones to gather audio from people's real-life conversations and then use that data to serve advertising.

Last week Facebook's vice-president of ads, Rob Goldman, said on Twitter that the technology giant did not and had never carried out the practice.

"Just not true," he tweeted in response to a call for people's stories of occasions when they believed it had happened.
Given the amount of online advertising that people see every day, there is a strong argument that it is pure coincidence - that perhaps the advert has been served before unobserved and is only now noticeable because of an unrelated discussion.

However, there are those who are convinced that they have experienced it. Here are some of the stories you told us.
Click to expand...

Has anything similar ever happened to you? Here's the list on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41802282
 
I have to admit, I don't think that ad companies would do this - as it would be such an egregious violation of privacy, likely spelling the end of a company that did it without permission. I imaging that a lot of it is down to the amount of data that companies like Facebook have anyway (i.e. marital status, gender, age, location, interests, etc....), alongside some co-incidences.

What do you guys think? :).
 
Don't know if it is the same, but I was reading The Mail Online and when I logged in to Facebook the same ads I saw on Mail Online started showing up on Facebook.
 
Using Linux Mint Cinnamon I get very few adverts, some on Facebook but otherwise nowhere the amount I got using W10.:nod::nod::nod:
 
I use AdBlocker. :)



oh, and I don't do twitface. :cool:
 
Are adblockers safe? Reading the net seems to give conflicting answers.

Any views?
 
This was going round on Reddit the other day too. Someone posted this video...





nivrip said:
Are adblockers safe? Reading the net seems to give conflicting answers.

Any views?
Click to expand...
They are fine. The legit ones that is. Like anything there are fake/bad versions of the good popular ones.

Ublock Origin or Adblock Pro are the way to go.
 
I see ads on social media that are obviously generated from my recent online browsing but I'm not aware of ever having advertising targeted at me from any public conversations I've had, either virtual conversations (text) or real orally delivered conversations.

Probably just a coincidence imo but hey - who knows?

More fuel for the conspiracy theorists ;)
 
Indeed, I don't think Facebook are listening, the FBI and CIA maybe, but not Facebook. :fool:
 
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