• ilega_dh@feddit.nl
    ·
    2 days ago

    ITT: nobody that understands what confirmation bias is

    The title is misleading as well. The article states a few times that there is no tangible evidence, just people that saw ads and thought it must be because they were listened in on. And Apple making a deal instead of letting a jury decide.

    Additionally, the article says it’s through accidental Siri activations. Which, while bad, are not unexpected and you can disable that if you want.

    There’s still no hard evidence that they’re always listening. It’s not impossible, it’s just improbable and impractical. And the risk for Apple, especially as they market themselves as a privacy-focused product, is much greater than the gain of a few dollars to show you an extra targeted ad.

    It’s like people really want it to be true or something?

    • SocialistDovahkiin [she/her]
      ·
      2 days ago

      Then why did they immediately settle lol

      If it was just confirmation bias, it would take basically no effort to dismiss the issue in court

      • ilega_dh@feddit.nl
        ·
        20 hours ago

        Because again, if you read the article, it’s very likely true that private conversations were recorded due to accidental Siri activations. NOT that they are always listening. NOT that those conversations were being used to feed ads. So that’s not what they’re settling for.

      • spectre [he/him]
        ·
        1 day ago

        This is not the "hard evidence" we need (and would not be hard to get if it were happening in the way people think it does).

        I don't use any voice assistants personally because I still have concerns (but not a belief)

  • Yukiko [she/her]
    ·
    2 days ago

    This happens with both Android and Apple. I've experienced this phenomena with both platforms and I've never had their respective voice assistants enabled. They quite literally just do whatever the hell they please. It is quite clear that they're listening in on everything. And $95M is literally a drop in the bucket to Apple. I guarantee they've made more off of this technology than they're being fined.

    • marcie (she/her)@lemmy.ml
      ·
      2 days ago

      This is of course all very well known. The best way to prevent this sort of data collection is to install open source FOSS alternatives or block internet access to devices at the router level. For things like Android, you can do a more finegrained approach.

      https://www.privacyguides.org/ has a decent list of alternatives, but are by no means exhaustive.

      For Siri, it is very difficult for it to still function as a device without invasive access. You'd need to find a different thing for this, there are many Home Assistant compatible options that don't phone home. As a matter of fact, all of these sort of smart home devices tend to have home assistant compatible devices that can be stripped one way or another of all their telemetry leaks.

      Pihole can rip out telemetry data and block ad domains at the router level too. For android without software changes (like swapping to Graphene OS), I strongly recommend https://nextdns.io/ which will help block telemetry and ads even in unpaid apps.

      • Yukiko [she/her]
        ·
        2 days ago

        Have a Pihole at home. Can't really take it on the go. Unless the Apple ecosystem has some form of blocker, I just have to deal with it.

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
    ·
    2 days ago

    I literally told people this was going to happen and I was called 'paranoid'. Same people would probably tell me, "Oh it's not a big deal."

  • LaughingLion [any, any]
    ·
    2 days ago

    every device does this i have an android and my wife and i have tested it by talking about bogus shit like having a kid or needing diapers while we have social media apps open.

    for the record we are barren and have no kids. but its starts serving you ads for formula and shit

    been telling people this for like a decade and everyone in tech gets on the internet like a know-it-all and goes on about how its not true fucking fools

    • SwitchyandWitchy [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      The uproar about tiktok was very telling. When the US gov starts throwing accusations, it's often projection.

  • Speaker [e/em/eir]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Where are y'all still seeing ads? I am dangerously online personally and professionally, and besides the inescapable host-reads I don't find myself interacting with ads. I'm currently dirtying up my ushanka by only using Hexbear for social media, so maybe I just have a weird bubble.

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      ·
      2 days ago

      A lot of people just don't install adblockers because they were never taught that they exist. I seriously don't know how they're able to browse the internet, it's so off-putting.

  • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Same thing with android. My wife and I will talk about straight up fucking anything and by the next day we're both getting ads for it. It's extremely noticeable when it's something that we'd never buy but talked about for some reason. Like we don't have kids, but recently visited family that does, and after talking about the trip we were both getting ads for diapers, daycare, and all kinds of shit like that. For some reason we both get divorce attorney ads as well which is just weird lmao

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    If just one person's phone is listening, it can communicate to other devices using ultrasonic signals about what keywords were heard. This is why a lot of apps request mic/speaker access when they have no real reason to do so.

    https://www.wired.com/story/ultrasonic-signals-wild-west-of-wireless-tech/

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
    ·
    2 days ago

    I convinced my wife to switch to Signal after a bunch of our Facebook Messenger comments got us targeted ads. It was pretty clear, we could just start a conversation about anything and end up with ads about that conversation.

    It cleared up a lot of targeting we were both getting. She'd been complaining for ages that she was getting audio snooped too.

    I had kind of have dismissed it because every time she would tell me about being surveilled, It would also be something she watched on TikTok or YouTube or saw on the news and I figured it was just her browser. She also complained about autocomplete having pretty strong precognition powers, But again you could tie it together pretty easily with previous searches.

    Then one time, we're in the car. We had just been talking about going out for sushi We hadn't been for sushi in months. And she mentioned that she needed to take something back to a store way across town like 45 minutes away on the other side of the city.

    She immediately ended up with an ad for a sushi place in that town.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
        ·
        2 days ago

        Signal is open source, and it's been reviewed by umpteen million individual researchers. If it's CIA they did a really shitty job at making it monitor you.

  • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    my favorite shit is actually Smart TVs/Streaming services doing this.

    I love walking into my friends' house while they're watching something on like Hulu or Netflix using the built-in app on their Smart TV and as soon as my phone has been connected to their wifi for more than 10 minutes they'll start getting insulin/diabetes drug ads because my fucking advertising footprint realized I've been a diabetic for 15+ years like right around the pandemic. Every time my friends are like "WHY DID THIS OZEMPIC/METFORMIN/ETC AD PLAY NOT FIVE MINUTES AFTER YOU CAME IN?!?!" and each time I'm like "you should install pihole plus I'm not even a type 2 so that shit is useless to me lemme know when you get a insulin pump ad".

  • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
    ·
    2 days ago

    it's been pretty obvious for a while. Talk aloud around phones about needing a new car and suddenly your ads are all automobile related

  • randomquery [none/use name,any]
    ·
    2 days ago

    I was talking to my friend about music, mentioned an artist (that she didn't know about) and showed her a song on my computer. 5 minutes later her video app on her phone was suggesting songs from that artist. It's completely ubiquitous, I operate under the assumption that I am always listened to.