It’s only been a rumor. Until this guy put it to the test.
Is your phone *really* eavesdropping on your conversations? And are advertisers picking ads based on what they’re hearing?
It’s the most basic of privacy questions.
Have we come to the point where we have given up privacy entirely?
Someone decided to put that rumor to the test:
…I decided to try an experiment. Twice a day for five days, I tried saying a bunch of phrases that could theoretically be used as triggers. Phrases like I’m thinking about going back to uni and I need some cheap shirts for work. Then I carefully monitored the sponsored posts on Facebook for any changes.
The changes came literally overnight. Suddenly I was being told mid-semester courses at various universities, and how certain brands were offering cheap clothing. A private conversation with a friend about how I’d run out of data led to an ad about cheap 20 GB data plans. And although they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly terrifying.
Peter told me that although no data is guaranteed to be safe for perpetuity, he assured me that in 2018 no company is selling their data directly to advertisers. But as we all know, advertisers don’t need our data for us to see their ads.
“Rather than saying here’s a list of people who followed your demographic, they say Why don’t you give me some money, and I’ll make that demographic or those who are interested in this will see it. If they let that information out into the wild, they’ll lose that exclusive access to it, so they’re going to try to keep it as secret as possible.
Peter went on to say that just because tech companies value our data, it doesn’t keep it safe from governmental agencies. As most tech companies are based in the US, the NSA or perhaps the CIA can potentially have your information disclosed to them, whether it’s legal in your home country or not.
Source: Vice
Fortunately, recent events have bolstered our confidence that nobody is gonna go rogue and misuse any of that … oh, wait.
Never mind.
It’s going to be interesting to see this tug-of-war between intrusions on our privacy and our demand for greater convenience eventually play out because increasingly, they are coming into direct conflict.
Get Doug Giles’ new book:
Rules For Radical Christians is not a survival devotional designed to help the young Christian adult limp through life. Rather, it is a road-tested, dominion blueprint that will equip the young adult with leadership skills and sufficient motivation to rise to a place of influence in an overtly non-Christian culture. Rules For Radical Christians gives the reader the keys to become strategically equipped to move into an anti-theistic environment and effectively influence it for the glory of God.
You can choose either the classic Paperback to trigger your college professors and quasi-communist classmates, or the Kindle edition to always have it on hand.
What makes America so different from other nations? Other nations are built around regimes or systems. But America was built from on ideas. From a blank slate.
Built on ideas that are DANGEROUS to tyrants.
That we have God-Given Rights, like Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Dangerous ideas. Like this one: the people, when threatened, have a God-Given right to stand up in defiance of any government that dares threaten any of those rights.
There’s a men’s version…
And a women’s version, too…
Because in America, the bros AND the ladies BOTH have a rich history of badass rowdiness.
