I saw proof one day. I was visiting a welding shop on business, never been there before, didn't know them. At some point, I'm sitting in the office with about five guys, distracting them from their work, yakking, and I mention a big piece of gear I have to haul around using a cart. One suggests a different kind of cart, and describes it. As we're talking, one of the other guys gasps, and holds his phone up to show the boss.

While we were talking, this guy opened his phone, and the first ad that popped up was for that odd, obscure equipment cart that we had just been talking about.

It turned out that these guys had been discussing this subject earlier, and now it was confirmed for all of us.

Regarding TVs, WikiLeaks' Vault 7 publication in 2017 included "Weeping Angel", CIA malware for Samsung TVs which streams audio from them while they're in "fake off" mode.

https://mashable.com/article/cia-samsung-tv-hack-weeping-angel

For example there was this one time where videos from robot vacuums leaked, including people shitting. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11562599/Robot-vacuum-cleaner-took-photos-woman-toilet-images-ended-Facebook.html

Mark Zuckerberg puts a sticker over his laptop camera and microphone.

Here's court cases lost by Google and Apple

Also, whenever monolithic megacorporations not recording you directly, virtually everyone is still buying any data about you they can get from actual malware distributing criminals.

Microphone hijacking is real and commonplace. (Edit: Fixed link thanks to some dumb feedback.)

The malware vendors sell what they learn about us on black markets. And in net effect, everyone is buying from them.

They "Privacy Wash" the things they learn from the illegal recordings, by passing them from one disreputable broker to another. Each broker can keep poor quality records of exactly where they got their data. Pretty soon it's just "part of your digital fingerprint" and "can't be helped".

don't need any such "proof". the whole industry has lost any and all benefit-of-doubt privileges, for ever. they don't get an opportunity to gain a foothold in mi casa and possibly be in a position to do harm.

I don't get the idea that after all the shit they pulled someone's like "well maybe this new thing's nice".

those are immoral people with zero compunctions about doing anything that hurts you, your community, and humanity as a whole. we are in an adversarial position and you'd do well to remind yourself of that constantly.

Many years ago this one was done https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnDWSvaQ1I

And the explanation behind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv8gvXPwWjY&t=0

The manufacturers tell you.

And they even make you click the "I have read and understood this" button under the document that explicitly states that they're spying on you and selling all your data.

Samsung TV's have an ai assistant: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-redefines-ai-search-on-smart-tvs-with-a-smarter-bixby-voice-assistant

Samsung Ai assistant privacy policy: https://d264isyiyrfhr3.cloudfront.net/storage/tos/usa/2.1.3/1765237389944/eng/usa_eng_pp.html

Other Samsung Scandals if the above wasn't enough: https://cybernews.com/privacy/samsung-settles-lawsuit-collecting-texans-tv-data/

AFAIK this is the only evidence: a claim by a marketing company that they're actually doing it. However, they have some reason to lie about this, bc it makes them sound all-knowing and powerful to their clients.

https://www.404media.co/cmg-cox-media-actually-listening-to-phones-smartspeakers-for-ads-marketing/

Think of something you've never mentioned or discussed before, then out of nowhere, start having a conversation with a friend about it, how much you like it and are thinking about getting it, taking lessons etc then see what happens over the next week on either your or your friend's ads (turn off ad blocker if you use one).

I recommend something completely unusual for most people like an instrument (didgeridoo or cowbell)

The very notion of proof implies that you can reproduce it. So I would suggest you forget what anybody here or elsewhere said. Instead, you :

• get a cheap phone (so typically Android)
• reset/format/flash it to a blank state
• make a new testing account on it
• use for random browsing, using app, etc and you log your history, namely what did you actually do AND what ads you actually see
• test for something outside of your new habits with a search query, then log and compare again, seeing the threshold to change
• repeat the last step for something said using e.g. a voice assistant, log&compare
• repeat WITHOUT explicit search, log&compare

Yes this takes a of time but that will help you make YOUR own opinion on the matter if you genuinely care.

It's still never been proven despite countless very smart people looking for this exact behaviour for well over a decade now. The first person to actually prove this whole mass spying via microphone to sell ads thing is actually happening, would be world-famous overnight.

For instance on an android phone, it's not really possible for an app to do something that a determined enough security researcher couldn't ultimately detect if they were looking for it. When you can build your own version of the operating system and decompile the application easily, there's not really any other places to hide that won't give something away.

If you feel like your phone is acting off of a conversation you had without interacting with it, it's nearly always one of these three:

• The vast majority of people are super predictable most of the time.
• You are not accounting for other people in the conversation, who may well have just googled the thing. These companies know who you spend time with, they don't need a microphone for that.
• Baader meinhof phenomenon

Don't get me wrong, I've thought surely something fishy was going on plenty of times, but the reality is, until someone can actually prove it (which is entirely possible to do if it's happening), it's gotta just be the above. We're being tracked a crazy amount, but it's not passively by microphones in our pockets

Note: none of this applies if you're actually being specifically individually targeted. All bets are off in that instance

The thing I find so funny about all of this is that people would rather believe that their phone is spying on them with the Mic that there is no proof of. Then what is more likely the truth you are not as unique as you think you are and they have so much data on you they have no reason to spy on what you say because they know you better then you know yourself.
But yes it is easier for people to believe the mic is spying on them because thy can't or won't accept the more likely option.

You could take extreme measures like Louis Rossmann has said he does to his phones.

He said he disassembles his phones and desolders and removes all the microphones. He said if he wants to make or receive a call, he'll use his Bluetooth headset or earpiece.

I don't see why the same can't also be feasible for televisions either, aside from how difficult they can be to properly disassemble and service.