We have all experienced suddenly seeing a sponsored post on our phones featuring that one item we have been dying to get -and were just talking about with our friends hours earlier. As this was happening to more and more people, Cyber security-specialists at Wanadara wanted to dig deeper and find out what was actually happening behind these devices to find out how they were pulling these advertisements. According to Wandara, in the experiment they placed two phones in a room, one with audio and one silent room. In the audio room they played dog and cat food advertisements and they repeated this for multiple days. When they went to look at the data they had found no correlation between the two as no dog or cat food advertisements were popping up on either of the phones (Tidy, 2019). From the article, “I would put my name to the research and say that we found no evidence at all this was happening on the platforms we tested. It might be happening in a way we don’t know about – but I would say it’s highly unlikely,”(Tidy, 2019) Mr Tuvey said.
Some might wonder, how is this possible? If it happens to us in our daily lives how is it not showing up in the well tested experiment. Well if we think past people listening to our conversations on our phone and look at how much data and information is stored on there, believe it or not, advertisers can learn so much about you by looking at your web history, location and other information to help determine what your next purchase might be. This is something that I find very interesting, imagine all the things you look up on your phone and how the technology behind the scenes is so good at analyzing all the data and picking advertisements that suit each and every individual.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49585682
In my Comm 280 class we were just talking about how phones, Google Homes, and Echoes are always on listening to your conversations all the time. Even when you think they are off they are on. You could be having a conversation and in the middle of it the google home will start talking as if you had asked it a question. It is a very scary concept to think about having a device like that always be listening and tracking what you are saying. I feel like for me any product or a clothing company I talk about with my friends or family earlier in the day will appear on my feed on Instagram or Facebook by the end of the night. That makes me wonder if there are privacy settings on my phone that need to be turned off completely.
Something I am wondering now; is the reason our devices are listening to us is to share advertisements in the products we would enjoy? The fact that if our phones are in our pockets or backpacks, they are still listening to everything we are talking about, how terrifying is that? According to this article, “ Your Phone Is Listening and it’s Not Paranoia” talks about how this guy is doing an experiment to see if his phone is listening to him while he talk to his friends about going back to school, shopping for cheap shirts, and using too much of his data. He then checks his Facebook page and sees advertisements for colleges, online cheap shirts, and a phone company that offers a lot of storage on your phone for a cheap price. Sam Nichols the writer of this article, had so much to say about this experience such as, “And although they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly terrifying”. After reading about this we all need to be more aware of what we are saying out loud to our friends because someone or something is always listening.
Source:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/evj4qw/these-iphone-lightning-cables-will-hack-your-computer
Many people nowadays do not realize that their phones and the sites that they visit are more than likely recorded by companies who can predict what products the users would most likely purchase. Google is known for using customers information to see what advertisements would be most suitable for them. A majority of Google’s revenue comes from “..super targeted advertising, which is how it made $31.2 billion in revenue in just the first three months of 2018” (Popken, 2018). Most people have used at least one of Google’s products such as Google Chrome, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Drive, etc. All these products help Google tailor specific ads and promotions for consumers. If you look up restaurants or coffee shops near you, Google will track your location to find places that are within your distance and not 100 miles away. It is not something that people think about, but it happens everyday in our daily lives. I know there have been cases in my life when I searched for “Adidas shoes” and I will go on Instagram right afterwards and there will be an advertisement for Adidas shoes while I am scrolling through my feed. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Most people would never let a company or person track their every search or location if asked, but people do not realize that happens in their lives everyday. Google does allow the option for users to opt out of letting Google use their information, but most do not care to do that. As long as users are getting the information and tools that they need, they seem pretty at ease with the fact that Google and many other companies collect data about users’ personal information.
Reference:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-sells-future-powered-your-personal-data-n870501
It is interesting to hear that well-tested results showed no correlation between phones eavesdropping and later advertising these products to you via social media. It does seem possible that they may not be listening — and simply gathering information through search histories, text messages, etc — like you had suggested, although I have not necessarily considered this. This idea immediately made me think of Amazon Echo and Alexa devices. Our phones may not be listening in on our conversations — but Alexa sure has to, right?
According to Forbes, this is true. They stated that, “Recent news reports in the last week revealed that Amazon has thousands of workers listening to Amazon Echo aka Alexa voice assistant recordings”. This is extremely alarming and takes away from the relief that phone don’t listen to us. If one device is capable of listening, my question becomes, “Why isn’t the other?” It is hard for me to believe that those reports are true especially when iPhone’s have technology such as Siri. This is essentially the same thing as Alexa –just on your mobile device. If Alexa is listening 24/7 despite your “Hey Alexa” activation, why wouldn’t Siri act in the same manner?
According to HotSpotShield.com, “Apple says that Siri is not eavesdropping at all. Instead, the software’s ability to respond to a voice command is programmed in. So, it’s not really listening at all times. The iPhone can only hold a small amount of audio, and it only records what happens after it is triggered by the “Hey, Siri” command. The recording is sent to Apple, but it is connected to an anonymous number.”
The fact that one product claims to listen while the other doesn’t makes me unsure of what to believe. They consist of the same concept and technology so in my opinion, one company is being dishonest — and my thoughts lead me to believe its Apple.
Reference:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2019/04/19/alexa-is-listening-all-the-time-heres-how-to-stop-it/#256dfb15e2d2
https://www.hotspotshield.com/blog/is-siri-always-listening/
This blog post intrigued me because I feel as though this has happened to me a few times before. I would just be talking to a friend about a product or something I wanted and then as soon as I went on social media I would see an ad for the exact same thing I was just talking about! The study that was done that you talked about was interesting and I was kind of hoping to see something come out of it. However, after doing my own research on the topic, many people such as Sandy Paradisal, Facebook’s former operations manager, said that it’s “…very, very unlikely” (NBC 2018). Paradisal also said that “constant streams of audio from so many phones” would be too expensive to analyze and that “all the data would drive up people’s phone bills” (NBC 2018).
Even if our phones aren’t listening to us, they are definitely tracking a ton of other things we do. Our phones already know a ton “of personal data including almost everything we post, share and search for online” (NBC 2018). Plenty of applications and websites have your personal information, especially Google who has access to about “70 percent of credit and debit card transactions in the United States” (NBC 2018). They also have trackers on “76 percent of websites while Facebook watches us on 23 percent of sites” (NBC 2018). With all of this other tracking going on I’m no longer surprised that I see all of these ads that are tailored to me and what I might have been searching online. Sometimes the ads can actually be helpful, and I might be interested in buying something from one of them. However, I still don’t like to know that almost everything I do on my phone and laptop is being tracked by some sort of company somewhere. Even though “Google and Facebook have both denied using cellphone microphones to collect information for ads,” I still feel like this issue could become a reality in the future as our technology continues to advance.
Source:
-“Are smartphones listening and targeting us with ads?”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/phone-listening-facebook-google-ads/