I disabled google location service. I am safe in that. I think MSN reads my email. First they send flight reminder. And now I am getting ads about something I said in my email. I am building a house and talking to the builder about roofing. When I log out, I get roofing material ads.
The location tracking on a phone is very specific. Recently, I went to Total Wine and bought only wine. However, I stopped in front of the locked case and looked at the Scotch. I couldn’t believe there are Scotches costing over $800 per bottle.
When I got home, I had ads for Scotch on my home computer.
I really need the location services on my phone for certain things (esp Nav). I am very stingy about what apps get access to that, though. My weather app is one i pay for (Dark Sky) because they don’t sell my data like pretty much ALL the others do. I use Groupon, Tripadvisor, Instagram all kinds of apps that WANT access to my location but I do not grant it. The apps still work fine, I just have to type in the city I am looking for or whatever.
We all have to decide what we are comfortable with. A speaker recording random convos and uploading to Amazon was one step too far for me.
My sister-in-law has Alexa and uses it every chance she gets when we are there, just to show off. So I hope it is recording embarrassing or damaging things for her. Serves her right.
If my wife yelling for me to “take out the trash” is useful to someone at Apple. Listen away.
And then there is the Google Sensorvault – see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-location-tracking-police.html
(TLDR: given that Google tracks your Android phone wherever the phone goes, you probably don’t want to fall into the habit of lending your phone to friends or relations who shoot people. Or if you do, at least disable the tracking/data sharing function tied to your account).
I find the invasion of privacy absolutely despicable. Don’t have Alexa or anything like that, but do have cell phones and laptops.
My only revenge is that anyone listening to us will be so incredibly bored, they will go completely nuts.
I was learning about advertising on cable TV and learned that whatever someone in your house searches on a wifi device is harvested by your internet modem so that the info can be used to target ads back to you.
How does a modem collect your data? Anyway to stop it?
My daughter, who lives with us, tells me she gets ads for items I search for. If I want to search for a gift for her, I have to open a private window.
Is it the modem doing it or google? They still collect your data in a private window, don’t they?
Many TVs are always listening also, if they take voice commands. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/if-you-have-a-smart-tv-take-a-closer-look-at-your-privacy-settings.html
In our case it must be the modem, since our daughter uses our house wifi.