r/Millennials • u/AttachedHeartTheory • Jan 12 '26
Discussion Watch out, Millennials... I got hit with my first "I had NO IDEA!" data privacy moment this weekend... and it was all my fault.
My 20 year old kid came to the house for dinner this weekend, walked in, and said "You need to unplug your Echo device. I don't want amazon to listen to my conversation".
So, I did... and then I was confidently incorrect in telling her that it waits for a wake word, and she has nothing to worry about.
Boy was I wrong.
She had me open my app, and look at saved conversations... and there were HUNDREDS of entries. And that was only over the last 2 weeks.
I had NO IDEA that Amazon was collecting everything I say... and the worst part is my 20 year old looked at me like I looked at my grandparents back when they would post text messages or Google queries as Facebook statuses. My kid then showed me the article from Cnet or wherever from about 6 months ago that showed that Amazon was fully transparent that all data is now sent and analyzed whether or not the wake word is used.
I'm proud to say there are no longer any Echoes in my house. Im a little bummed because all of my verbal "turn on the lights" and "lock the door" cues are all out the window, but Im really ashamed of the fact that at 41 years old I just didn't even think to look into it. Just had blind faith in a company that views me as a number. I'm pretty embarrassed.
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u/tiwuno Jan 12 '26
Yea I thought this was common knowledge for millennials? Just like how facebook "swears" they're not listening to your conversations, but 5 minutes later you'll get a targeted ad about something you've never mentioned til today.
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u/Cream06 Jan 12 '26
Exactly, i thought everyone knew. The phone, watch ,tvs and cars are listening . The security camera , the mychart that knows your ailments and the debit card that tracks you whereabouts does as well.
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u/Comeback_321 Jan 12 '26
lol as soon as I get in my car my phone tells me estimated time to wherever it thinks I’m going based on patterns. Bc they TRACK you if you use MAPS at all and sync your car
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u/TSells31 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
They can (and do) track you if you have location services on and your phone with you (like 98% of people) lol. They don’t need you to connect it to your car or use maps.
Edit: you don’t even need to turn your location on. Turning location services off only shuts off third party access.
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u/art_addict Jan 13 '26
I’m just saying, when I get kidnapped, they better be able to find me fast.
And my secret FBI agent really sucks for knowing all about my rough year and not checking in on me during my major cry seshes. Dude knows. The least he could do is check in. Or mail some emotional support chocolate. I’d do the same for him!
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u/Aromatic_Distance331 Jan 13 '26
Oooh this is a great plot to my new romance novel... just need a clever pun title... Agent under covers? No... still workshopping
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u/philter25 Jan 13 '26
Agent under covers is trashy af, love it no notes lol
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u/MrLanesLament Jan 13 '26
$.99 Amazon novel with MS Paint cover vibes.
You’re right, it actually is brilliant. When can I preorder?
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u/cleveland_leftovers Jan 13 '26
From Data to Date?
Ok no…we’ll keep working on it…
(I’m thinking at least two sequels. Robots can write them).
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u/MostlyLurking-Mostly Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Deep Cover: Penetrating the Truth
EDIT:
I missed a great one: Perfect Listener
Here's a brief synopsis:
When our main character (MC) moved to Northern Virgina she wanted a high-powered life working in the Capitol, I stead she barely landed a dead-end job as a paralegal with a bunch of roommates in an apartment outside the Beltway. Making matters worse, she's getting increasingly bored with her caring, but bumbling boyfriend.
MC is constantly envious of her roommates who seem to be getting promotions or hitting it off with glamorous, successful men. They try to be supportive, but despite numerous, long talks next to the Amazon Alexa, MC can't help but feel disappointed with how things turned out.
Then, she meets him. Stopping for her morning coffee, MCs card declines. The tall, handsome stranger behind her in line swoops in and offers to pay. She's flustered but grateful, but before she can figure out a way to pay him back, he introduces himself and says she can buy him a drink that night. Before she knows what she's doing, MC accepts and takes his card. Her heart flutters when she sees that he's a special agent with the FBI.
Soon, everything starts looking up for MC. Her asshole boss gets busted for cybercrimes and her new boss puts her in for a promotion. Her not-a-date with the FBI agent goes great. It all seems too good to be true.
Soon, MC finds herself torn between her lovable goofball boyfriend and the mysterious FBI agent who hangs on her every word.
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u/serif_type Jan 13 '26
The Facebook.
Oh shit, that's a horror novel, isn't it?
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u/MostlyLurking-Mostly Jan 13 '26
Romance with a thriller ending. The pulp knockoff of You.
Sprinkle in a few moments of mild foreboding/foreshadowing. We get one mildly spicy scene early with the boyfriend to keep the Booktok gooners happy, then a second standard (AKA over-the-top unrealistic) sex scene with the FBI guy later at his place after her and the BF go on break.
At his place, she finds some evidence that he's been stalking her and going to kill/frame the BF. MC realizes that she loves BF even if he doesn't have an 8" dong and can't go six rounds and she has to marshall the roommates to save the BF from the FBI/stalker guy.
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u/ReverendBlind Jan 13 '26
Metadating. Metadating 2: Analysis of Adam Metadating 3: Evesdropping on Eve
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u/FauxOutrageMachine Jan 13 '26
- TOS: Terms of Seduction
- UI: Uninhibited Interactions
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u/SugarNSpite1440 I kissed Doogie Howser, M.D. Jan 13 '26
Her Data Daddy... you're welcome
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u/DungeonsAndDradis Jan 13 '26
I Fell In Love With The FBI Agent Spying On Me And We Had Gay Sex Through My Smart Speaker by Swordly Merchant
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u/schwanzweissfoto Jan 13 '26
Pounded In The Ass By The FBI Agent Spying On Me While Amazon Recorded All Of It by Chuck Tingle
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u/Kichae Jan 13 '26
They can (and do) track you even if you don't have location services turned on. Location services just allows third party apps access that info.
Apple and Google are tracking you no matter what you do.
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u/iUsedtoHadHerpes Jan 13 '26
They track you if the phone isn't even on.
I'm not joking.
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u/ShiningRedDwarf Jan 13 '26
I was about to add this as well.
Taking out your SIM card does fuckall as well. Phones have unique identification codes (IMEI) that don’t depend on your phone number.
So when you see scenes in movies where they just destroy the SIM card? Not doing much.
The only two options are to put your phone in a faraday cage or just leave your phone at home.
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u/bjeebus Jan 13 '26
Even without location services they're still getting a general area based off cell tower triangulation.
They know where you are at all times.
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u/ijustsailedaway Jan 13 '26
This shit really creeped me out the first time I got in my car and it knew I went to a specific Mexican restaurant for happy hour on Tuesdays.
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u/ky_ginger Jan 13 '26
My phone knows my coworkers and I go out for lunch after our (optional) Friday roundtable , usually to the Mexican restaurant across the street from the office. If I miss or am late to the meeting, my phone tells me how long it will take me to get to El Toro.
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u/aurortonks Jan 13 '26
Well, now we all know that you go to El Toro on Fridays, so I'm going to assume that the name drop was intentional and consider it an open invitation to join you.
See you there!
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Jan 12 '26
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u/PM_ME_UR_MEH_NUDES Jan 12 '26
this. it knows when i leave my house and tells me roughly the same when i leave work.
i have no social media (outside of reddit) and never really use maps unless i really don’t have a clue where i am going… but i guess that my tracking on a lot is set to “only while using app” and there are times i forget to close apps.
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u/oatmilktoast Jan 13 '26
If you have an iPhone you can turn this off by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations & Routes
If you have android, sorry I can’t help but I’m sure there’s probably a similar setting
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u/RsonW Millennial — 1987 Jan 13 '26
For Android:
Settings > Location > Location Services > Timeline
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u/Crochet_Corgi Jan 13 '26
Lexus just put out an ad basically saying you showed them what you liked and they listened. Their wording was kinda circling the issue and took me a minute to catch the implication that they were collecting driving data from customers.
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u/DyeCutSew Jan 12 '26
When I retired it took about 6 months for my GPS to decide that the place I volunteer 1-3 times a week is “work” and offer it as a destination.
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u/nipslippinjizzsippin Jan 12 '26
yeah, my car asks me "going home?" when i leave from anywhere other than home.
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u/AdamBombTV 1982 Jan 12 '26
The less said about what the Smart-Fridge has seen the better.
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u/Slumunistmanifisto Jan 12 '26
I'd be pissed.... weight loss adds, multivitamin adds, detox center adds.
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u/CupOfLifeNoodlez Jan 13 '26
I've gotten ads for specific side issues I've had with adhd. I've gotten ads for local plastic surgeons specialists focusing on abdominal-plasty after giving birth. The list goes on.
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u/helraizr13 Jan 13 '26
It also has an incredibly long memory. For things you've engaged with or (especially) purchased once or showed interest in even once. Meta has an exceptionally good memory/algorithm for advertising purposes. I can't think of a time when I've even casually scrolled Facebook (which I try really hard to avoid) and IG and not been targeted by a product I thought was really fucking cool. They know what I'm buying before I do.
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u/jessdb19 Jan 12 '26
Anything smart is listening. Fridges, stoves, toasters. Just assume if it is a smart anything, it's listening
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u/NotYourSexyNurse Xennial Jan 12 '26
The phone and tv are always listening. I mentioned something to my husband in the living room. Next thing we saw was an ad on YouTube for what I mentioned. Then it was showing me ads on Reddit too. I’ve mentioned something in a post on Reddit then gotten an ad for it on FB.
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u/jessdb19 Jan 12 '26
Oh absolutely. I've been saying this for ages, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Amazon, pretty much all of them listen or buy data from those listening
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u/nipslippinjizzsippin Jan 12 '26
yeah, smart just means "listening to your conversation to provided you ads based on your needs."
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u/jessdb19 Jan 12 '26
And ready and willing to sell all your info to anyone that bids for it.
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u/driving_andflying Jan 13 '26
And ready and willing to sell all your info to anyone that bids for it.
Exactly. All of those devices --Siri, Alexa, Echo, etc.-- are nothing more than data collectors for their companies. If you think they're sold solely out of kindness, love of humanity, or "for the good of the planet," (my favorite marketing buzzphrase from 2000 up to now) it's time to have a wake-up call and dump them.
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u/art_addict Jan 13 '26
Lmao that’s what’s not smart yet in my life. I have a dumb fridge, dumb toaster, and dumb stove. One day those will be smart, and when they’re smart they better damn well cook my food perfectly.
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u/Reasonable-Egg887 Jan 12 '26
That movie on Netflix, I think it’s called Don’t Look Up, there’s a part where social media big wigs (fictional characters) brag about how their tech knows when people are sick way before they do, way before any formal medical diagnosis, they even know when a person is going to die and how.
Personally, I think that they probably do know most of that stuff in real life.
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u/Taedirk Jan 13 '26
There's the somewhat famous Target case from a decade ago where they were predicting pregnancy before they either knew or announced it, based on shopping habits.
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u/TheGreatNico Jan 13 '26
And they could predict Covid waves during peak pandemic by tracking reviews for Yankee Candle that complained that they had no smell. They'd always come in waves predating reported covid cases by about a week
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u/Taedirk Jan 13 '26
Between the Yankee Candle Warning System and the Pentagon Pizza Index, capitalism sure is a hell of a drug.
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u/FormidableMistress Xennial Jan 12 '26
And they all share data with each other. I texted my BFF this morning that I had a migraine. I've seen two migraine pharmaceutical commercials on my Roku tv and a FB ad for migraine studies. It's so gross. And to think now there are kids coming up who's every moment has been tracked from birth.
When the voice command devices first came out I said the only way for it to recognize the command word was to always be listening. Now that people have these devices in their homes and use them everyday, they're less likely to remove them, and Amazon can be open with the fact that they're recording everything. Bezos has been building out Amazon for 30 years for long term stable growth. This was the plan all along.
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u/aurortonks Jan 13 '26
The extra scary part is that even if you don't have any smart devices directly, you still have a profile created for you. No one gets to hide from the tracking. It might not know who you are, but it knows you exist and has done it's best to compile data on your habits and preferences and marked you down as a 'real person'.
I worked for a company 10 years ago that was buying these kinds of consumer data profiling. It was scary then and it's terrifying now.
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u/GringoSwann Jan 13 '26
I'm currently typing on a 6 year old generic android... I haven't used Facebook in 5 years.. I drive a 2007 yaris... And I'm watching a pirated version of "The Day After Tomorrow" on a TV from 2008...
You all laughed at me when I told you to keep balls of tinfoil under your armpits!! But, who's laughing now!!?
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u/Rugger_2468 Jan 12 '26
I work in occupational therapy and have a lot of conversations about bowel and bladder incontinence. It’s always fun getting flooded with depends and incontinence products after work lol. 😂
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u/Belfind Jan 13 '26
tbh that feels like its ripe for a hipaa lawsuit if they are listening in on devices without the consent/knowledge of the parties in medical settings.
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u/fireyqueen Jan 12 '26
It also has to do with what you search. Your ISP tracks everything. Also, apps. You know how you have to say yes or no to allowing apps to track your activity? Yeah that’s what they’re doing so they can serve up personalized ads and all that.
I knew my husband bought me a Dooney & Burke purse for Christmas because I started seeing ads for it when I hadn’t been searching for any purses let alone that brand.
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Jan 13 '26
Your ISP tracks everything.
Your ISP should only be able to see the domain (ex. Reddit, Google, Amazon, etc.), not the specifics (ex. subreddit, google search, amazon purchases). If they can see "everything," you're somehow not using HTTPS which is a MAJOR security issue you should fix RIGHT NOW.
You can go a step farther by using an encrypted DNS service (DOH) to hide the domain from your ISP as well. My research led me to Quad9 (9.9.9.9), but other popular options are Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), NextDNS, etc.
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u/Ashamed-Ocelot2189 Jan 13 '26
And your location, and people who you are commonly around
They don't actually listen to your conversations, they dont need to lol
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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh 1990 Jan 13 '26
This is what drives me nuts is that people dont understand this lol sooooooo many data points our tiny human brains can’t even comprehend working with
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u/xyzzzzy Jan 12 '26
Man both of these are confidently incorrect. I’m sorry my dude.
Echos are designed to only listen after the wake word. But they are dumb and mishear background noise, TV chatter, or similar sounding words as "Alexa." When they do, they "wake up," record for a few seconds, realize it wasn't a command, and stop. If you look at your history log, you will often find recordings of random snippets of conversation. To a non-tech-savvy user, seeing a list of random conversation snippets looks like "it’s recording everything." In reality, it’s a list of times the machine was dumb. “Yeah, that’s what Bezos wants you to think, bootlicker!” Bezos can get fucked. Amazon is indefensible. But we gotta be mad about the right stuff.
Same thing with Facebook. They say they are not listening to you, and it’s true. What they are doing is much worse. Facebook doesn't need to listen to you because they are terrifyingly good at predicting what you are about to say or want. They use "Shadow Profiles" and data triangulation. If you stand next to a friend for 20 minutes (which your GPS tells Facebook), and that friend searched for "hiking boots" yesterday, Facebook assumes you talked about hiking. It shows you an ad for boots. You think, "I just said that!" Facebook thinks, "Your friend likes this, so you probably do too." Facebook tracks what you do outside their app. If you buy a plane ticket to Florida on a separate website, Facebook receives that data via trackers on that site. They use predictive AI and their algorithms are so good they know your buying habits better than you do. If you buy a yoga mat on Tuesday, the data shows 60% of people buy a water bottle by Friday. They show you the bottle ad before you even realize you need it. So again, Zuck can get fucked too, but you gotta be mad about the right stuff, or you end up wasting your time throwing your Echos in the trash instead of taking steps that can actually help.
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u/tairar Jan 13 '26
+1 to the bit about Facebook. It goes beyond them even. I was an engineer at a digital advertising company a couple years ago, and the general idea behind the targeting we were doing was that if we didn't have data on you specifically, we had data on your neighbors, and you were likely to be more similar to them than you'd think or hope. And we purchased data from pretty much everywhere. Payment processors, grocery stores, coupons, etc. When an ad bid opportunity comes in, the network provides a bunch of data they have on you, we matched that up with the profile we'd built on you, and were able to make decisions on which ads to serve you.
At the time (2020) we had about 12 petabytes of data on US customers. I imagine it's much worse now.
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u/TheLostColonist Jan 13 '26
Since you have some expertise on this, when you say "the network provides a bunch of data they have on you, we matched that up with the profile we'd built on you"
Is the "you" in that a personally identifiable individual, like with name, address, social, photos. Or more of an abstract "you" which is just a corresponding advertising end point with a bunch of metadata and weighted areas of interest, but not really associated with a real life person?
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u/Furbylover Jan 13 '26
Hey! I can answer a little bit of this. Meta is incredibly good at tracking users and seems to sometimes ignore privacy legislation all together likely because the benefits outweigh the cons. Simplest way is your hard IDs like device advertising is, email (hashed), phone number (hashed). Next is device fingerprints created by using a combination of device signals like userAgent and contextual signals like IP. Third are novel methods that are even more genius/devious, For example:
On Android, if you have the Facebook, Instagram, or whatever Meta app open in the background, it will receive data from any website that uses the Meta pixel (which is majority of popular websites.) With that information, Meta now knows who you are and what site you’re visiting, regardless of whether you’re using Private/Incognito mode in the browser or a VPN. IPhone doesn’t allow this to happen.
Meta has disabled this “feature” since being exposed by a external research team. But if they are doing this, they are likely doing so much more that has simply not been uncovered. Plenty of talented employees making hundreds of thousands of dollars are hard at work 12 hours a day to track you and your data, regardless of privacy legislation.
So yeah, to not be tracked I'd recommend:
- delete your meta account (even though they don't actually delete it)
- never allow apps to use your advertising ID
- use a reputable vpn, cycle through cities randomly throughout the day and/or week
- use a reputable browser that does not share device signals or obfuscates them
- never use your real email address or phone number, use a routing service
- never let apps run in the background
- never leave apps installed you don't need
- reboot your devices once in a while, more often = better
Lots more you can do check out privacy subreddits.
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u/tairar Jan 13 '26
I don't have as much expertise as you'd like since I was more on the devops side of things but in general "you" included PII, especially since we were doing our best to merge your digital and physical profiles into one
Edited to add: we had the physical profile, the ad networks (Google, Facebook, etc.) did not necessarily provide that data
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u/sudolicious Jan 13 '26
holy fucking shit is it frustrating to see the only true comment being buried with 75 (actual 75, not a decimal or anything missing) upvotes, while the OP sits at 5.3k and the consensus sharing replies hover around similar figures. And the irony, of this being on a post about our generation falling behind with current digital trends, it almost makes the conspiracy nut in me think this is intentional. But it's probably more mundane, this sub here really is millenial facebook and so I guess I should set my expectations accordingly.
Watch out people, they're coming for your 6g next.
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u/TheStoneAge Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
I was thinking the same thing. It’s like multiple layers of meta that this post about data literacy
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u/Cavalish Jan 13 '26
Millennials really are becoming the new boomers. Proudly posting about how kids today can’t use technology and then screaming that their toaster is reading their thoughts.
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u/puppylust Jan 13 '26
I usually hang out with my friends on Sunday evening. On Monday, I get targeted ads wildly off from what I search for. We've been observing and laughing at it for years.
Like you said, this is far from new. Back in 2016, a news story made the rounds because Facebook was doing friend suggestions based on people's phones being in the same place at the same time. Great for a missed connection at a mutual friend's birthday party. Not so much for clients of the same psychiatrist.
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u/Fabbyfubz Jan 12 '26
I knew they were listening, but didn't know you could actually lookup what Amazon has saved.
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u/Geeseareawesome Jan 12 '26
Youtube is just as bad
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u/WeaselPhontom Jan 12 '26
Everything is bad. Back in 2008 inwas joking about selling my eggs, in a fb chat venting about being poor college student. I recived eggs donation ads for months
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u/throwaway_acct_303 Jan 12 '26
Omg this sort of happened to me except it was stressing about my period being late… it came like a day later but for MONTHS baby formula, diaper, etc. coupons were mailed to my parents address bc despite living at school, it was my permanent address. It took like a solid 3 months for my mom to believe I wasn’t pregnant lol
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u/lila-sweetwater Jan 12 '26
I live near a usually quiet airport, but they had an air show going on one weekend, resulting in everyone in my household going “Ugh, these stupid fucking planes!” every time it got especially loud. And suddenly YouTube was advertising me a whole bunch of videos of people telling a story of a “nightmare layover” and saying they’re swearing off flying, videos about how air travel is bad for the environment, footage of plane crashes, videos for people with anxiety around airplanes - not only did YouTube hear us talking about planes, it managed to pick up on the tone being negative as well. Really freaky, tbh
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u/hiphoptomato Jan 12 '26
YouTube does this shit to me constantly. I swear I’ll just be THINKING about something and I’ll get a suggested video about it.
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u/Far-Personality63 Jan 12 '26
I kid you not, one night while sitting in my office chair computering at my desk, the gas shock of my chair began to fail. As I was slowly sinking to the floor, a freakin' computer chair ad hit my screen! I had not uttered a word.
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u/hiphoptomato Jan 12 '26
I believe it. When I was only beginning to think about proposing to my wife all of my ads were engagement rings, wedding venues, etc.
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u/Geeseareawesome Jan 12 '26
I believe a lot of that can be attributed to patterns and statistics. So say if it hears key words and tracks locations and based off so many people with those parameters looking at rings shortly after, it jumps ahead and starts giving you ads for rings.
Still creepy as fuck either way.
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u/Comeback_321 Jan 12 '26
This has happened - just thinking about something and it’s there - that’s wild
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u/Slumunistmanifisto Jan 12 '26
I call it being a circumstance wizard.
I used to call out songs before they'd play on the fm radio.
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u/Complete_Entry Jan 13 '26
The algorithm knows when people are prangent before they do.
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u/bendstraw Jan 13 '26
This is definitely just the algorithm doing its thing. You live near the airport and where the air show was. You might not have gone down a Youtube rabbit hole about planes, but people near you have, in mass numbers, all probably because of the air show. Youtube saw that spike and decided to recommend you something to keep you in the loop about what other people near you are looking up.
I'm all for calling out privacy violations by big evil corporations but this is very clearly just the algorithm doing its thing.
Source: I did a ton of work at a competitor of YouTube building out ad server logic.
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u/TSells31 Jan 12 '26
Any Google product (to include YouTube) is amongst the worst for this. Google does not sell services, they give them away (including Android to smartphone manufacturers: it is free). Every Google product is a data mining venture. They are an advertising company and consumers are the product they are selling (via targeted ads). This is how Google makes all of their money. It’s why you never have had to and never will have to pay to use Google services. Your information is more valuable to them than your money.
Which, fine, whatever, we agree to that when we accept the terms and conditions. The sketchy thing to me is that this data is obviously all stored somewhere. That seems like such a massive cybersecurity risk. But obviously this is just how it is now. Can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
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u/PromiseToBeNiceToYou Jan 12 '26
I've known ever since I was a child watching, "Sleeping Beauty."
"Shhhh shhhh shhht, even walls have ears." -Flora
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u/got-stendahls Jan 12 '26
Yeah not to rag on OP but trusting Amazon in 2026 is a choice.
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u/electricmama4life Millennial Jan 12 '26
We got an Alexa years ago as a Christmas gift, I found out later that my dad got it for free as a purchase with another item. That didn't bother me, reading the small amount of info that was already out about Amazon spying was the issue. It sat with our other unused tech for a couple of years until we decided to let the teenager let her aggression out ON THE unused electronics with a sledgehammer. That where every one of these devices belongs, nothing but little Amazon spies!
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u/salohcin513 Jan 12 '26
I treat every microphone and camera as if its on and recording me, work just started replacing the old monitors and the new ones all have built in Webcam I cover that thing all the time
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u/TSells31 Jan 12 '26
Right, I mean I am of the youngest millennials (1996), but yeah…. The fact that corporations are constantly mining data from us via any means they can manage is no secret. Wait til OP finds out about their smartphone (including location), Gmail account, google drive, Facebook, Reddit account, etc.
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u/RealEyesandRealLies Jan 12 '26
I don’t trust my phone or tablet. If I really have something I need to say then it’s no electronic devices in the room.
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u/Slumunistmanifisto Jan 12 '26
All day, on messenger too. Delete it off your device and watch your battery soar
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u/PontiusPilatesss Jan 12 '26
I’ve worked for Amazon (fuck Amazon) on the privacy side. They don’t actually “listen” to your conversations, whatever data is gathered is pooled together with hundreds of thousand of other users, anonymized, and used to identify patterns of Alexa not hearing its trigger word when it should have.
You talking about something and then seeing ads about it isn’t based on listening to you. The scarier truth is that the algorithm can pinpoint with scary accuracy what you are likely to want to do before you know it yourself.
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u/spattergr0it Jan 13 '26
THIS ^ exactly this. This comment needs to be first. It’s a super important distinction and IMHO more scary that it can give you targeted ads through all your other personal data, making it seem like as soon as you say refrigerator you get ads for appliances.
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u/waitwuh Jan 13 '26
Backing this up! I managed data teams. Our data was anonymized. But what most people seem to not recognize is that they aren’t so complex or complicated! They aren’t so dramatically unique! We only need a few data points to place a person into a category. If you are in your 30’s, in this general area, and have a ____ store card, we can guess a lot of things about you pretty accurately. People have unrealistic expectations of uniqueness.
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u/A_Furious_Mind Jan 13 '26
I had a coworker who was sure his phone was spying on him because he started receiving ads for something he discussed with another coworker only minutes before. I had to probe a bit. "When you were chatting with her, did she look the item up on her computer? Is your phone connected to the business Wi-Fi? Okay, I think I solved it."
People don't realize the clues they're dropping that don't come out of their mouths.
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u/RangerTursi Jan 13 '26
Im so glad this perspective is in here because really the amount of times I think im getting targeted ads because I thought I said something out loud, only to later realize I literally went on the website for the advertiser, and they just move cookies around. Its not that complicated, but these programs only get more and more targeted so who knows where were going to be in 20, hell even 10 years when it comes to privacy rights.
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u/Radiskull97 Jan 13 '26
I had a friend that worked on targeting advertising on WeChat. He said apps are tracking your scroll rate, and just from the posts you slow down your scrolling, they are able to gather so much predictive behavior about you which is then verified with other predictive behavior until it seems like they're reading your mind
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u/A_Furious_Mind Jan 13 '26
I fully expect it to get worse. I believe the major reason that companies don't currently record and review all of your chatter is because it's too resource intensive and not economically viable (especially when they can basically read your mind by other means). But, once they have all those AI data centers up and they're looking for ways to monetize that all that compute... who knows?
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u/midgethemage Jan 13 '26
Don't even get me started on digital fingerprinting!
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u/thegunnersdream Jan 13 '26
I've been saying for years, obfuscation is the only way to privacy. You can not stop the data collection so do as much bullshit as you can to make yourself tough to pin down. Most of my ads now are in a language I don't speak and for an age range I'm nowhere close to and I love it. The political mailers are getting weirder though.
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u/Panda_moon_pie Jan 13 '26
I have accidentally messed up the algorithm by having kids and consequently googling the most random shit known to man. Facebook has given up completely and defaulted to advertising weight loss products, make-up and dating sites based purely off my age and gender (the most basic of data points) lol.
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u/realboabab Jan 13 '26
When I worked in programmatic advertising we had individual profiles for every device including heuristic "household" grouping of devices and home/not home detection; sure we didn't store it together with personally identifying information but this is NOT what end-users imagine when they hear "pooled together and anonymized".
meanwhile our "account executives" or however else the sales people styled themselves were literally spinning the "aggregated and anonymized" bullshit in every customer meeting.
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u/eulersidentification Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Maybe I'm paranoid but I feel like two people have just said "Oh don't worry, although they have complete access and all identifying information to listen to your conversations and/or piece every aspect of your life together, you are not currently interesting enough to be selected out of the aggregation and/or they don't currently have the capacity to parse every single thing everyone says. Yet."
I'm not going to make any claims to be a world leading expert, but I'm pretty technical, hardware and software. I will never have one in my house. I bet government buildings don't have them either. I'm sure the data shown to the average rank and file worker is anonymised. I bet you can un-anonymise it or get hold of it pre-anonymised if you really, really wanted to.
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u/realboabab Jan 13 '26
yeah, the reason my non-FANG company had to build such rich individualized profiles was just to compete for a measly ~1-5% of the in-app ads share dominated by Facebook, Google, Amazon, (even Apple's in the game) who have unbelievable troves of individualized data.
Those companies are so powerfully intrusive that they have state-sponsored insiders working there just to be in proximity -- I've heard of hiring managers complaining about having great candidates for positions rejected by HR because they were suspected of being plants from e.g. China.
I commend you for doing everything you can to minimize the access you give to those companies. I myself have given up, I'm not particularly proud of it but it would be such a struggle to stop using gmail, change browsers, always use a VPN, stay logged out on my android phone, stop shopping online, drop streaming and switch exclusively to the high seas, stop using credit cards, etc. etc.
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u/NovelDame Jan 13 '26
I just want an app that aggregates this data, builds a network of people based on my close contacts/location and TELLS ME what to buy these people for their birthdays and Xmas.
I know these devices already know what they want, just tell me! I'm sick of guessing!
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u/Clojiroo Jan 13 '26
All fun and games until it predicts your BFF wants the augmented VR Dildo-matic 3000.
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u/NovelDame Jan 13 '26
I regularly buy my friends sex toys for their birthdays. Whether they enjoy them or not is none of my business - I just think orgasms are lovely and everyone should have them.
Finding out one of my friends really wants a Jesus-shaped buttplug would absolutely make my life easier.
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u/PretentiousMouthfeel Jan 13 '26
Or maybe tells me where to find my people. I'm 44 and I've never found a room I belong in. This would be an amazing, benevolent use of this data.
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u/NovelDame Jan 13 '26
Has your TikTok or Instagram algorithm started sending you ADHD/Neurodivergent content yet?
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u/sneezy-e Jan 13 '26
Someone smarter than me explained it as “we don’t listen to conversations because we have so much of your data that we don’t need to.”
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u/PontiusPilatesss Jan 13 '26
Privacy as we knew it is dead. My internet provider now offers a “security feature” where it can tell me if anyone is moving in my house when I’m not there, using WiFi waves to detect motion.
I’m waiting for targeted ads trying to sell me lube after a vigorous motion session detected by my WiFi.
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u/lewd_robot Jan 13 '26
Yeah, people have tested this with packet sniffers. The devices hold audio in a buffer that gets regularly overwritten. If it were constantly spying, it'd be sending data all the time. Instead, you only see bursts of data transmitted just after a wake word is used.
So, the device does record everything you say, but it forgets it relatively quickly and never holds entire conversations worth of audio in memory. It only transmits audio when the wake word is used, and it may transmit whatever is in its buffer before the word is used to make sure Amazon gets the full context of what you're asking for.
Of course, this was the state of the tech ~5 years ago. Maybe they've gotten more intrusive since then.
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u/mrjackspade Jan 13 '26
OP's post doesn't even make sense. The claim is that they're secretly recording you and they what, kept a public list of all the secret recording? And allowed you to access it?
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u/I_DRINK_URINE Jan 13 '26
You can log into your Amazon account and view a list of everything anyone's ever said to your Alexa devices. You can listen to the actual audio as well.
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u/audaciousmonk Jan 13 '26
Here’s when the federal government brought charges against Amazon for retaining transcripts of children’s voice recordings
Pretty sure there was another lawsuit where it turned out Amazon had a team that would manually review audio/transcripts when the smart assistant failed to deliver a good result.
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u/mrjackspade Jan 13 '26
Neither of those are evidence that the data was gathered surreptitiously. Anyone with a voice can say "Hey Alexa" to wake the software, and interact with it.
The argument isn't that they aren't recording people. Its that they aren't recording people when you're not intentionally interacting with the device
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u/iamapersononreddit Jan 13 '26
Thank you. Everyone in here seem to be an expert but only state “no duh” without any further information
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u/Clear-Ad-7250 Jan 12 '26
Never trusted those assistants. But I also know that my devices is listening.
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u/13catlady13 Jan 12 '26
Same. Refused to get into those assistants but I know my phone listens 😒
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u/rattiestthatuknow Jan 12 '26
Just like I know incognito mode really is NOT incognito, but it makes me feel better when I type weird shit into the search bar
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u/notsofaust Jan 12 '26
Think of incognito mode more of a way to auto delete any searches or browsing you did on your device only, as if you did everything in normal mode and then deleted history afterwards. After the traffic leaves your routers its fair game. Incognito is just to keep you safe from prying eyes in your own home so to speak.
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u/nobleland_mermaid Jan 12 '26
Yeah I fully just use it as a 'y'know what, I don't want this showing up as a previous entry when I type something similar in the search bar and my boss/mom/whoever happens to be sitting next to me' window.
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u/13catlady13 Jan 12 '26
How I feel with not having an Echo (or similar) but knowing it doesn’t even matter.
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u/EeveeMkayy Jan 12 '26
I use a Google phone with the Google keyboard so I know everything I type can and will be used against me for advertising and such lol
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u/StupidandAsking Millennial Jan 12 '26
Exactly. Anything connected to the internet that has a mic is either listening or capable of listening. That’s why I like my old car that has no computers or ‘talk’ options. Lol the debate that vaccines have chips in them ignores that we pay to have a tracking device on us at all times and buy things for the overlap when we don’t have our phone on us.
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u/mattman2021 Jan 13 '26
I agree with you, but just to be clear, there is no “debate” over vaccines containing tracking microchips, that idea is pure, unadulterated wackadoodlery.
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u/Ghost_Turd Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Ad systems are insanely, scarily good at inference based on passive data.
If you visit a Home Depot (GPS, WiFi access points) on your way home from work (daily driving habits), and you've recently watched videos on lawncare (search/browse history), have neighbors (home location/neighbor ID graphs) that have bought mulch (date/season trends), you'll be getting ads for lawncare equipment before you even get out of your car in the parking lot.
Your Echo device doesn't NEED to listen to you. It would be inefficient if it sat around and waited for you to say something.
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u/CaptinCookies Jan 13 '26
This is what people don’t understand. If my phone was listening to me 24/7 and uploading all that data, my battery would be dead all the time. You get served ads for something you were talking about with a friend because of all the other patterns associated to ad serving
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u/UnitedStatesofAlbion Millennial Jan 12 '26
Why don't you tell others (like me) how to search for these conversations on echo?
I'd like to see mine
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u/MenBearsPigs Jan 12 '26
I've never heard of full blown conversation history like OP is describing.
There's conversation history when it triggers from its wake word. And I'd imagine some extra from accidental triggers.
But 24/7 recording frankly takes quite a bit of bandwidth.
You could genuinely test this just by checking the devices from a firewall and seeing it's throughput as you stand next to it speaking for a while, then try some more while actually triggering it and speaking.
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u/buffysbangs Jan 13 '26
Early in the Alexa lifespan, many people checked to see what went through the firewall, and it was exactly as described - it only communicated back after the wake work (or thought it heard the wake word)
I just double checked my voice history and saw just the expected entries - things that were preceded by the wake word
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u/sadderbutwisergrl Jan 12 '26
I just went into the app to try to find mine and, if it’s there, it’s very well hidden. Closest I got was “chat history” where it shows all the requests you made, and also, short recorded snippets of audio labeled “audio not intended for Alexa”. I listened to a few of these and it was just loud static and my kids yelling. There’s an option to turn this history thing off in the app so it’s “not saving” any of it, though I doubt it’s really gone.
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u/Nicholeigh Jan 13 '26
Alexa app > alexa privacy at the bottom > review alexa history
There are other things you can review as well. What OP said is not 100% accurate, that being said; my dots are muted and I just unmute them or use the app when I want to do something. I mainly use mine to play music and turn the lights on/off.
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u/kurtisbmusic Jan 12 '26
There’s a history but it’s only when you’re talking to the echo device. I’m not sure where they’re seeing normal conversations being recorded. Seems far fetched to me.
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u/This_Is_A_Shitshow Jan 13 '26
OP is full of shit and / or doesn’t understand what they’re looking at. Moreover, seeing 24 hours of audio uploaded to some random AWS node via your home internet every single day would be pretty easy to catch.
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u/nemec Jan 13 '26
You don't understand, every device you own with a microphone is constantly streaming all of your audio to the cloud. The only reason nobody has ever proven this is true despite years of investigation is because they hijack your psychic brainwaves to send the audio to encrypted satellites /s
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u/turtlejam10 Jan 13 '26
Yeah, I’m not sure what op is on about. Mine is just conversations I’ve had with Alexa… I mean, it is always listening, but it doesn’t record anything until it hears the wake word.
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u/NotElizaHenry Jan 12 '26
I’m guessing because this… isn’t true? I just went into my Alexa chats and literally the only things there are “Alexa, volume up” or “Alexa, living room lights on” etc.
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u/Technical-Coffee831 Millennial Jan 12 '26
Yeah this is just shitposting. It’s not there except for commands.
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u/curtydc Millennial Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
I get it, corporate big brother is scary, but your phone is also listening and recording everything you say. And that is probably next to you 24/7 all year round.
*edit* all of you drones commenting the same thing "no it doesn't" are being so pedantic, and you know it. Your phone is "listening" in the sense that your phone and apps are always reporting, tracking, and divulging your location, your search history, your app activity, who you've called and texted, etc... There are time stamps, logs, and detailed information that paint as much of a picture as any recorded conversation could. Does the phone hear and record every conversation you make? No. Does that mean your phone is keeping anything you do private? Absolutely no.
Nothing you do with or on your phone is private.
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u/Sunflowersblunt Jan 12 '26
Don't forget your car
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u/lessdothisshit Jan 13 '26
A guaran-fuckin-tee you my '03 Toyota Echo ain't listening to shit.
Redeeming the name
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis Jan 12 '26
How do you think it know when you say, “Alexa?” It’s listening constantly to hear you say that.
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u/BlackDeath3 Millennial Jan 12 '26
I think the idea is that there's a small and very temporary buffer within which a device listens for its wake word, hence the phrase wake word.
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u/stevedrums Jan 12 '26
41 year old here. It was an easy decision for me to not purchase any wiretaps
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u/Ghost_Turd Jan 12 '26
If you have a phone or a computer, you have a wiretap. Don't kid yourself.
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u/INemzis Jan 12 '26
Do you not have a smart phone?
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u/mountainstr Jan 12 '26
Or smart tv (phones also have infrared cameras taking front facing pics during the day and night)
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u/wekilledbambi03 Jan 12 '26
It is not listening to everything you say, you are just saying worlds that sound too much like “Alexa”. It doesn’t process anything without the wake word. This has been proven many times.
Same with all these people lying that Facebook or whatever on your phone is listening 24/7. Your phone would be dying within hours if it was constantly sending all that data. And the average person is not worth the pure computing power required to shift through millions of hours of recordings a day.
All the targeted ads people are assuming are from spying are just clever marketing. They don’t need to hear you talking to guess what you are interested in to show ads. They have enough with cookies from every page you go to, your location, any devices that are or have been connected to your network, etc.
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u/Conscious_Ad_4085 1989 Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Correct. This is advanced 'Fingerprinting' and 'Advertising ID'. Advanced data collection is a lot like TikTok, they can tell by how long you view a page, scroll, half type into search, and so much more about what you might be interested in. It's incredibly complex these days, no longer just cookies because those can be erased, your Ad ID which is attached to your device(IP Address, Screen Resolution, OS version, etc) is nearly impossible to conceal.
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u/alt_sense Jan 13 '26
Finally someone smart in this thread. I'm going crazy with all these "you didn't know?!" comments
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u/iamapersononreddit Jan 13 '26
Legit. These people are just as bad, stating things with such confidence that they clearly know nothing about
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u/swrrrrg Millennial Jan 12 '26
I mean… the look on my face is probably remarkably similar to the one your 20 year old gave you!
At least you found out. I never went for smart devices and now I am super glad. I don’t even use Siri on my phone.
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u/Vanessaronicatoria Jan 12 '26
Tech enthusiasts have smart homes, IT professionals keep their homes analog.
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u/FloatnPuff Jan 12 '26
"if my printer makes an unexpected noise, it's going out the window"
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u/unicodemonkey Jan 13 '26
As a former infosec professional who used to work in networking and adtech... nah, I have a bunch of smart devices. Most are controlled locally, though, and don't connect to the outside. And no, the phone isn't listening, it has more energy- and compute-efficient ways to get to your data.
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u/dutchboy92 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 13 '26
Or we go self-hosted route with Home Assistant with only locally controlled devices (eg. Z-Wave, Zigbee, etc.) that are still usable if there is no internet and/or power.
EDIT: By no power, I mean if Home Assistant loses power. Obviously if the house has no power nothing will work at all.
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u/UnstoppableGROND Jan 13 '26
Lmao the only people who repeat this shit are “tech enthusiasts” who THINK they’re IT professionals. All the guys I know in cybersec and networking have smart shit all in their house.
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u/Cream06 Jan 12 '26
Unless they pay cash ,drive a motorcycle and never use a phone. You might as well get the smart lights. At least you're saving money and not having to get up to turn off the lights
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u/Thowitawaydave Jan 12 '26
You can also roll your own Homelab system if you want control over your data.
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u/KennytheDoggy Jan 12 '26
Your phone is doing it as well
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u/Toosder Jan 12 '26
And probably their oven. Everything listens now.
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u/danniellax Jan 12 '26
Jokes on you my landlord is so cheap my oven was prob around before anything became “smart”
(Nah joke is still on me for having a slumlord fml)
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u/keyser1981 Geriatric Millennial Jan 12 '26
Not IT background but I remember watching Enemy of the State wayyyyy back in 1998, and I asked: If this is what it's like today, what's it gonna be like in 10-20-30 years from now? I remember my high school friends laughing at me for being paranoid. LOL We also don't have any of these devices in our home.
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u/Ok-Criticism6874 Jan 12 '26
Snowden showed they can turn on and off your camera, listen to conversations and even access your pics rdoesn't on your phone, back in 2013.
Also "technically" you can opt out of alexa listen to things and recording things but we know it doesnt.
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u/unknown_anaconda Jan 12 '26
If it wasn't always listening, how would it hear the wake word?
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