Are our mobiles listening in !!! just coincidence!! [hmm]

I’m sure my iPad & phone listen in. I’ve had adverts for things that friends have mentioned just in passing!

We've been saying this for a long time,I cover the camera and mic on my laptop but I still get things pop up that I've been talking about ,it stopped being funny months ago .The most bizarre was when I was telling my sons partner about us refusing to buy him Celtic or Rahgers football tops when he was wee because of the sectarian issues.We bought him a Man U top instead ,20 minutes after the conversation an ad popped up for Man U strips !!We've tested it by mentioning strange stuff and it always works r

Is this happening just on iPhones or other phones too?

Never happened to me

I was just talking to my daughter the other day about this! My GS who is autistic and quite obsessive about covid and had been talking about american preppers and some of their beliefs! The next day some of the things popping up on my daughters phone were strange to say the least, including hazmat suits!

My daughter texted me one night and said Mum are you looking at oriental rugs online. I said I had been the day before, and she said an advert has just turned up on her PC. We can only assume it is something to do with her using my wifi on her phone earlier in the day and similar things have happened since. It makes me nervous about looking for her Christmas pressie online!!

Smart phones can. Be careful what you say?

Dd phone is a smartphone, Samsung I seem to think

Mines a Samsung smartphone too and I've never experienced anything like this. Glad too.

I have a Samsung and that doesn't happen either bikergran. I would have thought iphones would be more safe. Is there something on the iphone you need to switch off? I find it pathetic on Amazon that I buy something and am then shown similar articles. I've already bought, dumb Amazon!

I have a Samsung on I continually have ads popping up for things I've discussed or chatted about - holidays, sofa beds, you name it. So I am sure it "listens".

Come to think of it, i wrote about sofa beds on GN, perhaps it reads my posts as well as eavesdrops!

I haven’t noticed it happening, they certainly can do this type of advertising, somewhere in the T&Cs you will have given them permission.
I would be amazed if Google Android didn’t do it and link it to Google ads, the security services can certainly listen in and track you too.

I wonder if it is something connected to the voice activated function (Siri)? I’ve had similar too.

Smartphones have become a human electronic tag that we constantly carry with us. Precise locations, dates, times, duration and what you did before and after opening an app or website are all tracked by your phone carrier and the companies that provide your favourite services.

Some of this can't be avoided. By design, wireless carriers always know where you are because your phone checks every few seconds for the strongest signal from nearby cell towers.

There are lots of ways to stop some of this, but sadly, not all. You will find this website very useful.

www.cnet.com/news/dont-let-your-smartphone-track-you/

This has been known about for some years. When we first saw a clip on YouTube we did an experiment: it worked.
We talked about dog food, something I haven't bought for eons. Up popped dog food adds.

I was talking to my daughter on the landline but my laptop was open in front of me.

We were discussing wheat-free pet food. After the call I returned to my laptop and an advert popped up for ... you guessed it! wheat-free pet food! Aaaaarrrgh.

Mm, strange isn't it? I'm not sure about 'listening' but if I Google something on the laptop it shows up on my mobile as a search. Obviously there is a link but I'm damned if I know how all this stuff works.

Yes. I was visiting a person and we talked about the stick strips to use for hanging pictures. Not half an hour later she had an advert on her phone for the very same.
Person took a photo of an old dilapidated building, she didn’t share but had builders adverts popping up later in the day.

Go to the privacy options on every device you use and every site you use regularly and really pay attention to the choices you can make. Google in particular has links to a lot of devices, so whatever you set your Google privacy to is reflected in what happens on other things. That means in the detail as well as the overall settings.

Google signs sites up (and gives them a small fee per ad or per click on the ad) to funnel the ads that they have sold to advertising firms to people viewing the site. Gransnet uses this service to help fund the site.

You will probably find that you have given permission for ads to be beamed to you that reflect your Google searches, the websites you visit, and your posts on social media!

The other thing you may be doing is signing into websites using your Google identity. That can allow the site to send you ads related to what is mentioned on that site.

Turn off the microphone on your laptop until you are about to use it to speak to someone - and turn it back off when you finish.

Are your photographs kept on online or cloud storage? Have you checked the privacy settings for that?

I'm not aware of my phone listening in but I certainly get adverts linked to google searches I have made.

I'll see what happens today, I spent two hours on the phone last night chatting to a friend and we discussed loads of things, including some very personal matters! Could be interesting!

My phone doesn't listen in as it's just a basic one with no internet access, chosen so I am free from that sort of surveillance when I'm out and about. My laptop, however, watches me all the time- the price of using the internet- and sends ads to me but I often tell it lies!!!

A helpful site. There are other sites with privacy advice, too.
mashable.com/article/google-privacy-setting-you-should-enable-now/?europe=true

The first thing you see when you open this site is their own privacy options. Don't just click on "I consent", go to "other options" , Read what they other options are, and then click on "Opt out of all"

Then you can read how best to set your Google and Gmail accounts for privacy.

I thought I remembered this thread from back in June - glad it's been revived.

Sometimes I think the laptop and/or phone are psychic. I clicked on the thread here about vinyl flooring and there was already an ad (in German) for vinyl flooring planted in the middle of the thread!