Privacy @lemmy.ml aviation_hydrated @infosec.pub 3 mo. ago

Partner started receiving ads in foreign language they don't speak

I'm learning a language, I speak it in public to other people who do. I don't research the language, because I have some old text books on it. My partner doesn't speak it and doesn't research it on their devices. I don't normally have my phone on me in public, but my partner does. It took about 4 months of publicly speaking in the language before they got ads

What do you think this means?

::edit::

It was a Reddit ad and my city has embraced those AI smart cameras, so I assume some of those are Google owned which makes sense with Reddit and Google's recent alliance. This is assuming our devices aren't listening to us without our permission and AI cameras are mining data on passersby

Other theories are that since cellphones are involved it doesn't matter if I nor my partner ever searched for the language, at some point my phone or partner's phone was near someone who spoke that language and the data brokers/ad sellers inferred from there

Seems like the consensus is that I must have posted in the language on some social media or used Google to research it or made some new friends who speak the language and that's why

43 comments

I think "the microphones are listening when they're off" is still a conspiracy theory at this point. It's not really needed to get enough information.

Are there any ways that Google could find out that you're interacting together?

Do you share an IP address/router?

Do you watch YouTube videos in that language?

Do you use any messaging apps where you speak that language with other people, but also speak with your partner?

Do you access any Google services (with a Keyboard for that language installed) that your partner also accesses?

Do you use location services that could pinpoint both of your locations to the same street address?

Does your partner interact with any of the people you're learning that language with? (E.g., Social media friends, "Contact"s, live in the same geographic region)

Is your device on the same network as your partner's*? (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth)

I'm not saying these are all ways that Google uses, but I believe that each of them are ways that Google would be able to associate that language to your partner.
- Yea, that is my problem with the "always listening" theory. I am sure they're capable of that, but don't think they're doing it just because they can get more data with a fraction of the cost by more "traditional" tracking.
  
  In a way, it is scarier than listening - because listening is far easier to understand than the multitude of ways the data is collected and combined.
  
  Exactly. They definitely could, but there'd also be potential legal issues, and it'd just be much more expensive to analyze sound data.
  
  If it's done on each device, then their battery power would suck, and performance would decline. Sure, they could do that, but I imagine most phone manufacturers would rather sell more phones and make money from app companies (Meta, Google) who pay to have their apps pre-installed on the phone. Or Samsung and Apple, who have their own ecosystems for mining data like Google does.
  
  If they were instead just uploading audio to central servers (which could mitigate legal issues due to "anonymizing" the data), then they'd be paying for the computational power to analyze all that data.
  
  Again, completely possible, and likely in use with things like Alexa and Google Home. But on our phones (and laptops for that matter), they have so many other cheaper ways to get probably the same quality of information.
  
  There is the Near-ultrasonic that can be used to transmit data and it seems that that is always listening so full audio isnt that far. But yeah i recon ur right its too risky when they have plenty of alternative ways to get the same data.
- Yeah only one that would match would be geolocation, and I'm a pretty offline first person, so no overlap in internet history since my footprint is pretty much Lemmy this summer.
  
  Which makes me think it could be all the AI smart cameras recording interactions
  
  You have your phone on you, right? And he has his phone on him, right? And your phone's are constantly near each other, riiiiiight? Do you maybe see where this is going?
  
  Your "Internet profile" is being linked to his "internet profile" because they can see you are constantly together. So they assume friends/relatives/coworker. But they also see that you're together at times people who are couples are(late at night while asleep, for example). So with basic time and location data, they've determined you're a couple. And that becomes another metric in your profile. Things that he likes, it will assume you like or are at least interested in, and same for him. All you had to do was type in the other language a few times and your profile got "speaks X" added to it. And him, by dating you, now has "knows someone who speaks X regularly" attached to his profile.
  
  It's really very easy. Now imagine that everything you do is being catalogued like that. Then cross referenced with other people they know more about to flesh out more inferences about yourself("you like x and y? 98% of people who like X AND Y also like Z, so let's advertise Z to them".
  
  It seems like magic but it's just advanced statistics in action.
This is how I know I'm winning at privacy. When my podcasts inject ads that I can't understand
- Yup, isn't that a result of data poisoning?
  
  Most likely just due to the VPN exiting in other countries, but advertisers are the most prolific trackers, so it is still an indication that they don't know who I am. Which is good.
It wouldn't surprise me if the reason is very obvious when you know why. Something like you both use Facebook and you post in that language and your partner likes the posts, or your partner googled a few words in that language to surprise you, or something equally mundane.

It's also very likely that's it's just a misclassification or just pure chance.

It's highly unlikely that any "ai" cameras are involved especially since Google doesn't make cameras for cities (afaik)
- Google owns Nest, it's just a guess since we know they train AI on this data
  
  We don't post in the language. They don't speak the language. I specifically study only offline and rarely have a cellphone on me. I only speak it in person to strangers since I'm too shy to speak to any friends who speak it and we have no new friends who speak it
  
  Assume I performed my opsec properly, how could they get this information?
I haven't been to a Spanish speaking country in 2 decades, don't speak Spanish, and the only Spanish speakers I know primarily speak in English around me.

Yet 50% of the ads I've been getting on SoundCloud for years are in Spanish...

Is it because I faved a bunch of songs in Portuguese? That's not even the same language! Is soundcloud'd ad network racist? The people (me) demand answers!
I shoud not be a listening, but instead a well knowledge about all your life. So they know that your partner is your partner and then they can send foreign language ads because you are related
Oh but they totally are, it gotta make sure you didn't ask voice bots something. Anyway, its something you don't opt out of because that would require a totally de-googled device using lineageos or something and avoiding voice things, also it goes off IP rather than device. For example, my dad visited my house and started to complain about getting youtube ads in Tamil and then being amused by some of the ads and going down a youtube Kollywood wormhole. I do watch a lot of foreign film where my phone can hear me, so every once in a while I'll get an ad of the language of the last film watched, which is sort of funny ngl.
Google doesn't need cameras
Document everything
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4851 Had a great write up on this! Also a good informative show overall IMHO.
- Thanks for the suggestion
Real time microphone surveillance. It was proven to exist quite a few years ago.
- Any sources on this? We don't use voice activated AI bots like Alexa
  
  Do you use a non degoogled android phone?
  
  This was years ago, but I left my phone at home with the Spanish channel on. I planned to do this for a few days, but after 9 hours my Twitter and Facebook feed ads were both in Spanish. I’d be surprised if they stopped scraping that data.
  
  Any sources on this? We don't use voice activated AI bots like Alexa
  
  If your partner has their phone on them it is always listening so it can activate if you say "okay google" or whatever.
  
  The sources I know are in Russian so they won't be useful for you but generally gapps have this feature and idk if it can be fully disabled without degoogling.
- Source:
  
  Already gave.

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