What the Tech: Are Your Phone and Social Media Apps Listening to Your Conversations?
BY JAMEY TUCKER, Consumer Tech Reporter
It has happened to almost everyone.
You mention a product while talking with a friend. A few hours later, an advertisement for that exact product appears on Facebook, Instagram or Google.
It can feel like proof that your phone was listening to the conversation. The technology to analyze audio and use it for advertising certainly exists. But there is no evidence that Meta secretly activates your phone’s microphone to target you with ads.
The more likely explanation may be even more unsettling: Facebook, Instagram and other online platforms already know enough about you that they do not need to listen.
How advertisers learn what interests you
Meta says it does not use the microphones on smartphones to secretly listen to conversations for advertising purposes.
Instead, advertising systems build a profile based on your online activity. That information can include:
● Websites you visit
● Products you view
● Links you click
● Videos you watch
● Apps you use
● Previous searches
● Purchases and shopping activity
● Accounts and businesses you follow
● Your general location
● Information shared by advertisers and data partners
Over time, those digital clues can reveal what you are interested in, what you may be considering buying and what advertisement you are most likely to notice. In other words, the internet may know your habits better than you realize.
Why an ad can appear after a conversation
Sometimes the advertisement may have already been appearing, but you did not notice it until someone mentioned the product.
This is similar to buying a certain model of car and suddenly seeing that same car everywhere. The cars were already there. Your brain simply started paying more attention to them.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has offered another possible explanation. The person you were speaking with may have previously searched for or interacted with the product.
“You were talking to someone about a product, and they before had actually looked for or searched for that product,” Mosseri explained.
That raises another question: Can the online activity of friends influence the ads you see? Your friends may be influencing your advertisements
Imagine a friend sitting across from you recently searched online for a particular hat. You have never searched for the hat, but after the two of you talk, you begin seeing ads for it.
Advertising systems can identify connections between people by looking at information such as social relationships, shared interests, location patterns, internet connections and similar online behavior.
Advertisers may also place people into groups based on shared characteristics. An advertiser might conclude that people your age, in your area, with similar interests and shopping habits are likely to want the same products. That allows advertising platforms to make predictions based not only on what you do, but also on what people who resemble you are doing.
It can make an advertisement feel almost impossibly specific. Can phones connect people through location or proximity? Technology exists that can connect devices using location, proximity, shared Wi-Fi networks and other signals.
However, there is no public evidence that Meta is secretly using nearby conversations or microphone recordings to target advertisements in this way.
The ads are more likely being generated from the enormous amount of information companies already have about you, your interests and your online connections.
For many people, that explanation is not especially comforting.
How to check which apps can use your microphone
Both iPhones and Android phones allow users to review and disable microphone access. On an iPhone Open Settings, select Privacy & Security, then tap Microphone. You will see a list of apps that have requested access. Turn off access for any app that does not need to use your microphone.
An orange indicator appears near the top of the screen whenever an app is actively using the microphone.
On an Android phone
Open Settings, select Security and privacy or Privacy, and look for Permission manager. Tap Microphone to see which apps are allowed to use it. The exact menu names may vary depending on the phone.
Removing microphone permission can provide peace of mind, but it will not stop personalized advertising. Apps and websites can still use browsing activity, searches, purchases and other data to decide which advertisements to show.
The bottom line
Your phone probably is not secretly recording your conversations to choose advertisements. It does not have to. Advertising companies can often predict what will interest you by collecting information about what you search for, what you watch, where you go, what you buy and who you interact with online.
That may be the real reason the ads seem to know what you were just talking about.
