this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026
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This was my understanding, but I just don't believe it anymore. There have been way, way too many time my wife and I were talking about an incredibly niche thing that didn't come up through the internet in any way, and lo and behold the algorithm presented those key words. Nobody will ever convince me it isn't being done to some extent.
I had this happen many years ago, to the point there was no chance something wasn't listening. We suspected it was my partners iPhone with Facebook installed before they got better about preventing abuse like that, as it was a Facebook ad that showed up.
Were talking about something where we never use the product, would never use the product, but it came up in a conversation just between the 2 of us, and there were ads the next day.
It happened a few times.
It doesn't need to, that's the issue, there is so much other data you are generating that can be harvested. Nothing you talk about is completely random, so it's incredibly easy to build profiles about you, without listening to a single word.