I'm learning a language, I speak it in public to other people who do. I don't research the language, because I have some old text books on it. My partner doesn't speak it and doesn't research it on their devices. I don't normally have my phone on me in public, but my partner does. It took about 4 months of publicly speaking in the language before they got ads

What do you think this means?

::edit::

It was a Reddit ad and my city has embraced those AI smart cameras, so I assume some of those are Google owned which makes sense with Reddit and Google's recent alliance. This is assuming our devices aren't listening to us without our permission and AI cameras are mining data on passersby

Other theories are that since cellphones are involved it doesn't matter if I nor my partner ever searched for the language, at some point my phone or partner's phone was near someone who spoke that language and the data brokers/ad sellers inferred from there

Seems like the consensus is that I must have posted in the language on some social media or used Google to research it or made some new friends who speak the language and that's why

      • Nakoichi [they/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Any sources on this? We don't use voice activated AI bots like Alexa

        If your partner has their phone on them it is always listening so it can activate if you say "okay google" or whatever.

      • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
        ·
        5 months ago

        The sources I know are in Russian so they won't be useful for you but generally gapps have this feature and idk if it can be fully disabled without degoogling.

          • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
            ·
            5 months ago

            The first sources I've ever found was this https://piped.video/watch?v=gsZo_I8wIKI and this https://piped.video/watch?v=U0SOxb_Lfps

            But since it's a very popular topic, you can find more articles, tests and researches. There's also this video that explains other kinds of tracking https://piped.video/watch?v=gsZo_I8wIKI

            I'm bad at searching and I don't follow actual research papers. You can find that yourself I think.

            • aviation_hydrated@infosec.pub
              ·
              5 months ago

              Yeah I'm more on the actual research paper route, I need science and not opinion or speculation. But with that, I'll probably take a look since community lead efforts can be good too, thanks for sharing

  • tamagotchicowboy [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Oh but they totally are, it gotta make sure you didn't ask voice bots something. Anyway, its something you don't opt out of because that would require a totally de-googled device using lineageos or something and avoiding voice things, also it goes off IP rather than device. For example, my dad visited my house and started to complain about getting youtube ads in Tamil and then being amused by some of the ads and going down a youtube Kollywood wormhole. I do watch a lot of foreign film where my phone can hear me, so every once in a while I'll get an ad of the language of the last film watched, which is sort of funny ngl.

  • Theroddd@lemmy.ml
    ·
    5 months ago

    https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4851 Had a great write up on this! Also a good informative show overall IMHO.

  • foremanguy@lemmy.ml
    ·
    5 months ago

    I shoud not be a listening, but instead a well knowledge about all your life. So they know that your partner is your partner and then they can send foreign language ads because you are related