Many have noticed a strange situation: you talk to friends about a product — for example, a new bicycle — and soon advertisements for that very product start appearing online. This creates the impression that the smartphone is "eavesdropping" on conversations. But is that really the case?
Experts note that companies do indeed collect vast amounts of data about users. However, in most cases, the appearance of such advertisements is not related to eavesdropping, but rather to the analysis of a person's digital footprint.
Why does advertising appear after a conversation?
So-called targeted advertising is formed based on information about a user's actions on the internet. Large tech companies, such as Google and Meta (the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram), collect data on search queries, visited websites, purchases, and the user's location. This is reported by the resource MakeUseOf.
Modern algorithms are capable of analyzing people's behavior and even predicting their interests. Therefore, the system often has enough data about your searches, likes, website views, and the interests of your friends to suggest exactly the product you recently talked about.
At the same time, Google and Meta officially state that they do not use recordings of users' conversations to display advertisements. Constantly recording and processing audio from billions of devices would be too costly and would carry serious legal risks.
Moreover, the activities of such companies are under close scrutiny from regulators, and violating privacy rules could cost them not only huge fines but also their reputation.
Why does it feel like eavesdropping?
Modern smartphones do indeed have voice assistants — for example, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Siri. They are constantly "listening" to the surrounding speech, but only to recognize so-called wake words like "Okay, Google" or "Hey, Siri."
Sometimes, user agreements also state that individual recordings may be analyzed by specialists to check the quality of service. However, this does not mean constant eavesdropping on conversations.
What research has shown
The question of possible eavesdropping by smartphones has been discussed for many years. In 2017, a graduate student and a student from Northeastern University in Boston conducted a study to determine whether device microphones are activated without the user's knowledge.
The results of the check revealed that the microphones did not turn on by themselves. However, the researchers discovered another problem: some applications could collect information about users and transmit it to third parties.
For example, certain programs took screenshots or recorded videos of the device's screen. Of approximately 17,000 checked applications, about 9,000 had potential access to screenshot functions.
This means that even without eavesdropping, a smartphone can collect data about the user in other ways.
How to reduce data collection
It is nearly impossible to completely avoid data collection on the internet today; however, it is possible to reduce its volume.
Experts recommend:
- disabling microphone access for applications that do not need it;
- limiting applications' access to geolocation;
- regularly clearing cookies in the browser;
- using privacy protection tools, such as VPNs.
Such measures will help make advertising less intrusive and better control what data about you is collected online.
