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The advertisements I see online or in email spam happen to coincide with whatever I had just been discussing with my mates. This has been the case for a good part of three years. May be its the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon as someone else in this thread points out, but the ads I see, at the time I see, make me quite uneasy knowing what I know being in tech.

Edward Snowden, famously, rids of the entire microphone-array from his phones and only uses external mics: https://youtu.be/ucRWyGKBVzo?t=888

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27932952 (Snowden on Privacy and Democracy)

https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1175422816403038208 (Snowden on smartphones)

⬐ Terretta

The simplest explanation of this is that there’s an antecedent reason you’re discussing what you’re discussing, and that’s the reason that correlates to the ads you see, rather than your discussion itself.

Perhaps it’s content you read. Perhaps it’s another product you researched. Perhaps it’s something someone in your office or home looked for from the same IP. Perhaps another ad campaign triggered the discussion. Then you talk about it. Then you see an ad related to the original trigger, and you notice it (the Baader Meinhof bit).

⬐ abnry

IMO this is the real story. Tech companies know so much about you from your browsing history and your purchase history. But they also know this about your friends and family, which I think increases the creepiness factor, as they may serve you ads based on _your friends & family's_ activity.