Nate
Have you ever seen an ad pop up on your phone that makes it seem like your phone is listening to you? It happens to me almost every day. I used to think it was just from websites I’d navigated to, but even just yesterday I saw an ad for an, umm, product (I won’t type it here because they’re watching/listening) I had just talked to my girlfriend about, so it must be listening, right?
Privacy tech worker Robert G. Reeve recently started a Twitter thread describing why this actually happens and, perhaps more importantly for those concerned about privacy, how to make it stop.
The thread, which had nearly 400,000 likes and retweets at press time, dispels myths around ad targeting while actually kinda making what’s really going on sound even more creepy.
(I still think they’re listening though.)
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Read also: Just A Bunch Of Hilarious Tweets About All Those Privacy Policy Updates Spamming Your Inbox