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It's been tested -

British security company Wandera tested the hypothesis that smartphones are listening to conversations and targeting ads based on those conversations after they heard so many claims that this is what was happening.

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The test -

They took two new phones into separate rooms. One phone was in a quiet room and one phone was left in a room with pet food advertisements playing over and over. The company stated that the difference in the ads on the two phones was indistinguishable afterward. However, depending on the source, the outcome differs. It needs to be a brand new device to be a fair test.

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Capabilities -

However, our phones have the capability of listening to us. Apple’s Siri works because if the app doesn’t understand, a person translates for it by listening.

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Big tech -

Facebook, Amazon, and Google are all listening to you as well, but it may not be as evil as it sounds.

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Spies? -

Anyone who's actually listening in is employed to feed information back into the algorithm if the app can't understand what you're saying to improve how the app functions (so it will know next time).

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It's supposed to stop listening -

Usually, smart devices’ listening capabilities have to be awoken by giving a command, and then it stops listening in due time.

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There's no solid proof that devices listen when they're not prompted to listen -

All these major tech companies have stated that they’re not spying on our conversations, and there isn’t any proof that they are or have been. They all claim that the mic is only turned on when it's prompted.

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It would be tremendously expensive and not as valuable as people might think -

The amount of resources it would require to listen to and transcribe everyone’s conversations all the time is a lot more than any of the companies are likely to be able to operate on.

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We agree to giving away our information -

Often, what we’re skipping when we scroll through the terms and conditions as fast as possible is a clause that allows companies to access (and sometimes sell) our information.

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It improves services and products -

There are many good reasons why they collect our information. For example, it allows them to produce a better bespoke service for our needs. Maybe it’s that Spotify notifies us that they now have The Beatles’ catalog because we searched for it before.

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In our defense, it's not always easy to disagree or continue without agreeing -

There is also a good reason why we agree without thinking too much about it. For example, we may not have enough time to read these long documents, and often we have to agree anyway to use the features of the app or services in question.

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There's rarely an option to opt-out -

There has been a lot of controversy in the past few years regarding how little effort large tech companies make in making it obvious to users what they’re agreeing to with regards to their information.

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Every decision we make is gathered -

The reason we get these ads about things that we have been speaking about is that targeted ads are based on every decision we make on our smart device or computer.

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A huge proportion of the US population are skeptics -

This is not to say that it’s impossible that our services could listen to us without our permission, it’s just unnecessary. Still, some 43% of American smartphone owners think their phone is recording them without their permission.

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A quick rundown -

Cookies are small blocks of data created by a web server (Apache) while a user (you) is browsing a website (Facebook), and placed on the user's computer or another device by the user’s web browser (Google Chrome).

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It helps websites function better -

So-called “first party cookies” allow the site to remember certain interactions you had with the site so that it’s more efficient the next time you visit. For example, it might remember your login details.

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Third party invites the "bad guys" in -

However, third-party cookies are created by external sites to the one you are visiting. This is often a marketing company in partnership with the site you’re visiting.

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Your own tidy data package -

Then, the marketing company can get an idea of your life: your routines, wants, needs, and more. The same goes for everything you like or follow on social media platforms. You become a tidy little data package.

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They're masters at finding people just like you -

These advertising companies run ads for huge numbers of companies from hardware to makeup, and so they don’t just get an idea of what makeup you’re into, they know whether you’re into it on a Saturday or Thursday.

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Targeted ads -

Then, these companies target ads to you based on age, gender, height, weight, job, hobbies, etc.

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Algorithmic recommendation -

By classifying and clustering this information, advertisers improve their recommendation algorithms using something called recommender systems to target the right customers with the right ads.

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AI -

Several artificial intelligence technological functions help the information be gathered and used as effectively as possible.

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We agree for them to gather and sell our information -

In short, we allow this, and not only is what we do online used, it’s paired with AI and expert minds to targets ads better.

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How it might work -

If we like a photo of a dog and we are a female of age 30 in the US, it might show us a video of a cute baby, and if we also like that, it might hit us with an ad for a book on having our first child.

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Assumptions are made -

If we are in a certain location and follow a page on local rally driving races, these algorithms may conclude that because other males of the same age who followed the page on Facebook like motorcycles (which it might know because of Facebook location, a tagged photo, or a liked page of motorcycles fans), that you might, too.

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The theory that devices are listening to you has been debunked -

In the end, the theory that our phones are secretly listening to us and manipulating us because of the information it’s heard has been debunked over and over again.

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It may be up to us to protect our personal information for some time to come -

The phones and companies operating in the tech industry don’t have to listen in on us because we give our information away freely. It may be a while until the internet evolves and that legislators work out how to crack down on tech companies getting our information from us so easily, so it’s up to us to protect our information for now.

Sources: (The Conversation) (Vox)  (Forbes)

See also: How has technology transformed the way we live and learn?

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