Using phone mics to target people based on their conversations?

Today I woke up and thought it might be a good day for golf so I casually mentioned to my dad that "we should go golfing". About 10 minutes later - not having typed anything or searching anything related to golf, or even using my phone for that matter - I looked on facebook and there was an ad right in my feed about a golf game phone app.

I have also noticed that occasionally when I used to use pandora radio (switched to spotify cause its way better ) I would mention that I wish a certain song would play, and then it would play within the next 3 songs.

Now I fully understand the law of attraction and noticing things that you are thinking about, but some of these particular cases seem a little too coincidental.

I am wondering if anyone has heard of anything regarding actually picking up on keywords that are heard through phone microphones and then targeting those phones?

Very interested to hear peoples responses, Banjii.

P.S. No, I am not paranoid and quite honestly would enjoy if this tactic was being used by people cause I think its cool. I am just genuinely curious if there is a way out there that people are doing this.

Well if this were possible and it was happening there would be outrage among smartphone users. Invasion of privacy etc.

And I never get midget porn adverts even though I always talk to my missus about it!!

As already mentioned this would be a legal nightmare, if it was easy then the big tech companies with billions would be already doing it

i heard smart tvs in usa record people talking and then shows adds based on that

The NSA can do it, and their tools were stolen and posted online. Could be possible

its not hard to find out that you're into golf. Anything golf related you did in the past it would know. (searches, fb likes, etc)

It's because the Facebook app turns on your mic whenever it wants to, even when your phone is locked so I can listen in on what's going around, what tv show you're watching, what music you're listening to. I they've been doing it for a few years, I uninstalled it like 3 or 4 years ago because of that update and just use the mobile site. This is old news. And people think that Google is bad.

""I'm really interested in going on an African safari. I think it'd be wonderful to ride in one of those jeeps," she said out loud with her phone in hand. According to the NBC report, under a minute later, the first story in her Facebook feed was about a safari. And a car ad soon appeared on her page."

"Facebook says this about its use of the microphone: "We use your microphone to identify the things you're listening to or watching, based on the music and TV matches we're able to identify.""

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/facebook_is_listening/


Bottom line, uninstall the app, I think it also checks to see what other apps you have installed, how much time you spend on those apps and what time of day you open them, etc.

But hey I don't give a shit as long as it get's me better conversions in my PPC advertising