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I remember reading about the privacy scandal stuff back in March ‘18 and got the impression Facebook couldn’t (or didn’t) read the content of text messages although they were collecting data that people had agreed to somehow..
However, lately a couple of interesting (hopefully) coincidences occurred. First, I was at a mates house talking about Fortnite and asking what the craic was with it and why the young’uns are going mad for it etc. One of my mates sons plays it so we fired it up on his Xbox and they were showing me the game. Anyway, next time I log in to Facebook maybe an hour later there’s suggested Fortnite videos right near the top of my feed. Nothing was done on my phone except it being physically in my pocket when we talked about it..
Then just last night my mate text me saying the new YT Jeffsy and Capra were back in stock on the website and we had a few texts back and forth. Literally about 2 mins later (before I’d even been on the website or made a search) there’s a YT Jeffsy ad right and the top of my feed..
WTF is occurring here? Scary stuff and surely a hell of a coincidence if no invasive data harvesting taking place.
Does the FB app have permission to read texts on your phone, you can check!
Quite common that cloud companies like Fortnite runners sell the IPs of people playing to the ad companies!
You are friends with a guy who's kids are into fortnite, you were at his house - phones can use geo locations, you might have been linked on something with that guy. Advertising comes from that.
If I was canyon I'd be doing an advertising push when I got stock back, your profile would probably have identified you as target for the bike.
Look to the right about the front page stories on this very site.
Xora - where is this setting? I thought it was just text metadata not actual content?
Mike - hadn’t thought of geo location. Weirdly the guy whose son played it wasn’t his house or Xbox. It was another lads house and he had to download the game for the first time.. were friends on Xbox live which could be the link?
Drac - haven’t been into that thread much is it not just cookies and browsing history rather than texts?
Drac – haven’t been into that thread much is it not just cookies and browsing history rather than texts?
You don't need to there's a link to two YT articles on here it'll pick up the words from there.
In Android, Apps & Noticifaction->App Info-><App Name> and there is a permissions section which shows all the permissions you granted the app when installed.
iOS I do not know!
iolo the key bit in your link there
When the app identifies what you're listening to or watching, the content will either appear automatically in the post (you can remove it), or it will be one click away in the "Feelings" tab above the keyboard. The new feature is opt-in, meaning it won't work unless you manually turn it on. Once it's activated, it will remain on until you turn it off in the top-right corner of the compose page.
STW is an abbreviation of both this place and a version of fortnite called 'save the world', which is why I have been getting stacks of Fortnite-related guff pop up on Google.
It's no secret we are watched and monitored at every opportunity , whether it be from internet usage or cellular usage. Got to keep the masses content and happy, in fear that they might have free thinking and irrational thoughts.
I get the Fortnite adverts every couple of weeks too.
RM.
iOS I do not know!
iOS is very good at sandboxing Apps and they need explicit permission to see anything outside their silo.
Can you list all the times you were talking about something and didn't get an advert for it as well, for balance like.
I had this after explaining to my mum how to use a velux window with my phone in my pocket, facebook was all ads for velux windows right afterwards which i've certainly never googled! Could be someone had previously googled velux from that house, but I uninstalled messenger as I read it has constant access to mic as part of the t&cs
I too have noticed an increasing incidence of targeted ads for things I've talked about but not googled.
I've got the messenger app on my phone (on Android) but when checking the permissions setting there looks to be the option to switch on/off things like mic, messages etc. Tin foil hat time indeed!
I have never seen an advert for Fortnite. No doubt I will now after typing Fortnite on the internet...
I was in hospital in July last year, Mrs M came to visit and we were wandering around the grounds and came across a water feature/fountain that we both commented on. Never spoken about them before or looked at online adverts for them but both our FB feeds had garden water features adverts that afternoon!!!
Messenger can be set as your SMS app so there's the way in if you accept that.
There's loads of clever profiling stuff on FB based on your use and your friends and their friends use, including messenger and Instagram and then what everyone interacts with on the web that can identify you with cookies. Can predict things about you from other people's actions even.
YT advert though is more likely you like mtb stuff on FB and it's top of the ad feeds at the moment.
chakaping
Subscriber
Can you list all the times you were talking about something and didn’t get an advert for it as well, for balance like.
That.
It would be easy to test....
Sounds very clever....except...have you actually bought a Jeffsy? Or anything to do with Fortnite? If you haven’t then surely all these clever advertisers are just wasting their time and money?
The thing is fb isn't truly free. It just downs upon whether you mind or not how fb extract their "payment" from you I suppose.
If they made their money via some sort of subscription it would probably be a far less hateful place in general. Probably not even close to being as popular though.
People in general were a lot more naive about fb only a couple of years back but now they are under the spotlight a lot more.
I don't like what I see so it's booted up via a web page only on my mobile (I ring install messenger) once every couple of months I would think. If I have to stalk someone or such.
Same here poopscoop, I tend to message people with SMS messages. I've got a Google mini and keep talking about holidays in Mexico, Mexican food, etc but no ads as yet for Mexico so I guess that's not spying on me
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danvelazco.fbwrapper&hl=en_GB
It appears to be basically a wrapper for the mobile site and seems to segregate fb from the main browser (cookies, login etc).
If they made their money via some sort of subscription it would probably be a far less hateful place in general.
+1 and the reason I have a P here. I don't like the advert-paid model for internet use so I'll support alternatives.
I don’t like what I see so it’s booted up via a web page only on my mobile
+1
Given all the news recently about FB it would not surprise me in the slightest. They come across as
a. A company that strictly abides by the rules
b a company that thinks the law applies to them
c. a company that is willing to bend the rules to make more profit
d. a company with a ceo that knows whats going on.
It appears to be basically a wrapper for the mobile site and seems to segregate fb from the main browser (cookies, login etc).
Reckon I'd trust Facebook over any third party "wrapper" app.
Why do people find adverts scary? Do you think it's something like this?
I had a weird one with Facebook, i changed my surname back to mothers maiden name when i was 16, so 27 years ago, pre-Facebook and internet for most, i have never used it since or ever referred to it in anything on web.
yet i keep getting targeted ads for sweatshirts the like with "Greenhill clan rules" or similar with my old surname on?
STW is an abbreviation of both this place and a version of fortnite called ‘save the world’, which is why I have been getting stacks of Fortnite-related guff pop up on Google.
I'd be claiming that was why too, if I'd been searching youporn for "STW".
Sat here in the cattle market about an hour ago chatting. Chap said he went home early last week and told his dad to take the afternoon off and go to Hereford races. Checked Facebook 5 minutes later and there it was. First advert, 3rd thing on my feed, a bloody advert for Hereford races......
I have no interest in the races, have never been, never even thought about them in 50 years.
Makes you think.
Sat here in the cattle market about an hour ago chatting. Chap said he went home early last week and told his dad to take the afternoon off and go to Hereford races. Checked Facebook 5 minutes later and there it was. First advert, 3rd thing on my feed, a bloody advert for Hereford races……
I have no interest in the races, have never been, never even thought about them in 50 years.
Makes you think.
Cattle market you say? If its Herefords market then you are just down the road form the racecourse. Makes you think.
Makes you think.
Sadly, I fear the latter may often be the case.
The rumour that "Facebook / Google / Alexa / Siri / Cortana / Fred Basset is secretly listening in on you talking" has been doing the rounds for years. InfoSec and SecOps have some really rather clever people working in the industry, if it were remotely true they'd have been busted for it long ago. It might be worth their time from an advertising / profiling perspective but it's absolutely not worth the risk to their reputation getting caught. If there's any truth in it I'd be very shocked indeed.
If there’s any truth in it I’d be very shocked indeed.
Actually, agreed. Given how easy it is to intercept and see all communications from a device back to Google/FB/Amazon or whoever, its highly unlikely they are listening. Geo location on the other hand.....
Nowhere near Hereford. Sat in Raglan. Not used Hereford market for over 10 years
And it wouldn't work in Scotland anyway.
Just had my first advert for Welsh lamb now. I kid you not. Going to talk to myself about John Deere tractors on the drive home. I will report back later
That will have nothing to do with typing John Deere Tractors into a web forum 😉 lets not forget the quality of the Massey Ferguson tractors too 😉
"Just had my first advert for Welsh lamb now," said a surprised user named Welsh Farmer.
😆
Not Facebook but...
I was having a conversation about Marvel movies at home a couple of weeks ago. None of us could remember the actors name that played Thanos, all I could remember was that he was also in the Goonies.
Anyway, I thought 'Google is my friend', got my phone out and typed 'who played...' I didn't get chance to write Thanos before pictures of Josh Brolin appears on my browser.
It did make me tighten the chin strap on my tin foil hat just a little.
I was sceptical about this when my business partner (who works in IT) was convinced that Facebook are listening. Most of the instances can be explained by website tracking/stuff you post on Facebook and profiling.
However, a few instances have made me change my mind. The most interesting was when my father in law read out from a newspaper that flights were available form Bristol to Tokyo now via KLM. About 30 minutes later this then popped up in my Facebook feed. Whilst I may meet some of the demographic criteria of the advertiser in this case, it was very coincidental, and I haven't done any searches for anything of this kind.
Also had several other similar situations.
JP
At some point last year, my better half watched The Crown, specifically, the episode on the royal yacht, with my ipad on standby next to the TV. for the next month, I was getting Facebook adverts for careers working as crew on private megayachts.
On the rare occasions I actually watch live TV, it seems weird to watch adverts for things I have no interest in whatsoever; like razors and tampons.
Overall I much prefer the targeted advert version of life.
As said on the previous page, it's possible to analyse and track so much of the traffic in and out of devices I have to go with its coincidence rather than snooping.
I have spent around £50k in last year on Facebook ads.
I have no idea how a firm selling garden fountains have access to better tools than I know how to use when I have Facebook people asking me how I am getting the click through rates I achieve.
My own experience of “snooping” is me and my girlfriend discussing how we made hummus the day after the Hebden flood with tahini and chick peas. And how Brexit stockpiling meant maybe we should buy some tahini. As we didn’t have any in the house.
And the next day there was a whole new section of hundreds of jars of tahini in Hebden CoOp, which I asked Rob about and he said they had none in the day before.
Are Hebden CoOp listening to my phone?
https://twitter.com/keephebdenweird/status/1078701070841532416?s=21
Was listening to Gorillaz last night via youtube. When the song 'Humility' was playing Mrs Rider commented about George Benson's involvement, which I wasnt aware of. We had a brief discussion about it. Logged onto fb this morning to see a George Benson ad. A George Benson ad! Obv youtube - Chrome - fb. But it was the conversation I remembered, so it triggers a switch in your head to think you were 'overheard'.
Cahoots aboot the hoose. So where're the ads for Frank Zappa box sets? I've been mainlining Zappa some nights for 3 hours straight.
I'd be surprised if apps could bypass the security controls on what's allowed to access the phone mic so I'd start there. Sure the intelligence agencies have had hacks in the past (and likely still do) but that's different. Mine's limited to Shazam at the moment, if you have any games/apps that have access then remove them as some use listening software to help with targeted ads (scanning background noise, google Alphonso for an example).
...my father in law read out from a newspaper that flights were available form Bristol to Tokyo now via KLM. About 30 minutes later this then popped up in my Facebook feed.
You got an ad related to a current news story, both of which were presumably linked to a press release and publicity campaign run by KLM? That doesn't sound like a huge coincidence.
Facebook et al can do this stuff by linking up the data they already have, without doing any covert surveillance. For example, if you use a loyalty card, supermarkets can make an estimate of how many people live in your house, by counting how many toilet rolls you buy.
Facebook will do whatever it can, and whatever it can get away with, to make $$$.
I removed my account and deleted the app, but I have noticed adverts similarly remarkably closely related to recent conversations, rather than internet searches (which is bad enough IMO) from Amazon.
The weirdest thing I've experienced is that next to my desk I have a carved object brought back from India. The other day I was using the Amazon app, and suddenly started seeing ads for identical objects. I draw no conclusion from that, but it seemed like a very large coincidence to me and gave me the creeps.
Something is definitely going on!
Scary stuff, cos if my data is being collected, I dunno what they're doing with it, cos I do not see any ads at all. Maybe I should, so I know what to keep quiet about.