I’m always puzzled by the need people have to try to dispel the notion that Facebook listens to ambient audio or conversations.
They are the bad guys. They didn’t need to steal Android phone logs either, but they did.
They are the bad guys. They didn’t need to steal Android phone logs either, but they did.
It's quite possible that, even at a company that has done some bad things, other things have a more innocent explanation.
On Instagram last weekend I and a friend were shown a number of ads for Chandon sparking wine after I bought a bottle, and someone else at the party also did and we talked about it.
Both of us insist we didn't google sparkling wine, Chandon, or anything we think relevant... it really does on the face of it appear Facebook had listened to us.
Also surely advertising the same wine I just bought to me is... dodgy ROI at best?
It'll remain a mystery forever.
It could have been that she then searched for a charger and being a small company we all shared an external IP address, that we also shared the ads... or it could have been that spy software on my phone had sold our conversation to advertisers. Either way, mic privileges were locked down and ad and tracker blocking efforts doubled after that.
If you ever get in a car accident in the United States don't be surprised to get mail the very next day from accident insurance attorneys because you bet every service you use is selling every aspect of your life without your explicit knowledge or consent. Every time you use a credit card to purchase something that information is sold to a network larger than you can imagine, who will in turn sell it to their network. Your geographical location is sold by your cellphone provider whether you realize it or not and whether you think you have GPS tracking turned off. If you have a SIM card that's tied to you as an individual, it's being sold.
Here's just one example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/19...
Notice how the keyword is "suspend"? I don't doubt that they've quietly resumed the practice. In fact, I bet all of these companies and service providers are overjoyed right now that the media is so focused on FB to care about all of the shady shit they're doing on a daily basis.
I'd rather not have any of my data shared, of course, but if I had to pick and choose between my health insurance being sold and versus what TV shows I liked on FB, I'll take the TV shows any day.
A far more probable and less exciting explanation is that your credit card provider (or the store you bought the wine from) is selling your information and Facebook happens to be one of the buyers.
Furthermore, people grossly overestimate how unique they are. At any given point in time you're a target market for millions of products, you just don't notice the ads for the ones you don't buy. Just because there's a correlation doesn't mean you were singled out as an individual.
"On May 14, 2014, Acxiom announced that it had acquired LiveRamp, a data onboarding company, for $310 million. LiveRamp was founded in 2011 as a spinout of RapLeaf, a marketing data and software company founded in San Francisco, California in 2005 by Auren Hoffman and Manish Shah.
In May[2017], LiveRamp announced a consortium formed with two other ad tech companies, AppNexus and MediaMath, to compete with Facebook and Google in the area of programmatic advertising, the term used to refer to the use of automation software to buy advertising.
In 2016, LiveRamp acquired two data and identity-matching startups, Arbor and Circulate, for more than $140 million combined. The company also announced the launch of IdentityLink, a method of anonymizing consumer's identities as they are tracked across multiple platforms.
In February 2018, Acxiom announced a reorganization from three divisions into two - a Marketing Solutions group and its LiveRamp business. In May, the company announced international expansion into Brazil, Netherlands and Italy, and released Global Data Navigator (GDN), a portal for identifying available data elements by country. In June 2018, Consumer research firm GfK MRI has partnered with Acxiom."
You may have brought it online in which case almost certainly there was a FB tracking pixel fired back from the e-commerce website to signal that you did. On the other hand if you bought from an offline store and swiped a loyalty card while doing so, your transaction might have been uploaded to create a custom audience. If you paid by your phone or have your loyalty app on your phone this becomes even easier - convenient offline to online matching is the only reason loyalty program apps are pushed.
Finally, even if you didn't do any if these and the other person did, if you both connected to the WiFi at the party and checked FB (or better still you added the other person as a friend), the shared IP address between your devices is enough of a signal to begin connectings.