Your phone isn't eavesdropping. The reality is stranger.

"Most people have had this experience. And most people, at some point, have reached the same verdict: the phone was listening. It's a tidy explanation. It fits the evidence. It maps onto everything we already half-suspect about Big Tech. And it is, most likely, wrong. At least in the way people tend to mean it. But here's what makes this story worth telling properly: the version that's probably true is stranger, and in several respects more troubling, than the one everyone believes."

"A 2024 peer-reviewed study by Segijn et al., published in Social Media + Society and surveying over 900 participants across the United States, the Netherlands, and Poland, found that between half and two-thirds of respondents believe electronic eavesdropping is a plausible explanation for receiving ads related to offline conversations. The suspicion was highest in the US, where participants also reported feeling the most unsettled by it."

A widespread belief exists that smartphones covertly record conversations to deliver targeted advertisements. Between half and two-thirds of survey respondents across the US, Netherlands, and Poland believe electronic eavesdropping explains receiving ads related to offline conversations, with highest suspicion in the US. This belief is not fringe conspiracy but mainstream concern affecting consumer trust and behavior. However, independent research from Northeastern University analyzing over 17,000 Android apps suggests the actual mechanisms behind targeted ads are more complex than simple microphone eavesdropping. The true explanation, while probably not involving covert audio recording, may be more troubling than the popular theory.

Read at Medium