from Hacker News

Facebook app listens in the background for targeting ads

by beyti on 10/29/17, 9:47 PM with 13 comments

• by jpl56 on 10/30/17, 3:13 PM

  By the way, why use the Facebook app when you can have a shortcut to Facebook.com on the home screen ? ... Make it a "mbasic.facebook.com" shortcut, it will allow using private messages without the need for Messenger. Discovered here on Hacker News, thanks!

• by reustle on 10/29/17, 11:12 PM

  I had 2 instances where this happened to me recently. Once was with Twitter and once with Facebook.

  Mentioned Disney parks in a conversation in the car with my parents and the next day had Disney ads, never before.

  About 2 days ago was talking about night guards for teeth with someone and the next day had Invisalign ads on Facebook.

  I don't have the Facebook app installed, but do have the messenger app. I just turned off microphone access to the app and now it won't let me take pictures in-app.

• by okket on 10/29/17, 10:19 PM

  See also current discussion about this topic:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15581114

• by lousken on 10/30/17, 10:05 AM

  If people really think that's the case why don't they uninstall facebook immediately?

• by Wonsize on 10/29/17, 10:16 PM

  I have heard reports of incidents similar to this one from several of my friends. There is some undeniable "spookiness" going on. It may or may not be Facebook using the mic.

  There are possible confounds:

  1. The algo's are that good, meaning that the spookiness is explained by them having other data (say about your peer group) and then knew that you wanted that gourmet coffee press that you and your wife talked about, before you talked about it.

  2. We may be unaware of the sheer number of times we are being targeted on the web.

  So add in a salience factor where you are targeted millions of times, by pretty good algos, and then only notice the ones where there is that coincidence that lead to a feeling a "spookiness."

  I am sure that explains some of these... but I am still left unsure about the mic issue!

• by nblavoie on 10/30/17, 3:59 PM

  Simple question. Is there a way to reverse engineer the app or sniff its network traffic (to find clues) to find out if this is real or not ?

• by Simulacra on 10/29/17, 11:09 PM

  I just assume that it's more likely than not that a company like Facebook will listen surreptitiously whether I like it or not

• by chrischen on 10/29/17, 10:22 PM

  Doesn’t seem likely unless Apple is working with Facebook to surreptitiously activate your microphone, which is highly unlikely.

• by pzivkovic on 10/29/17, 10:14 PM

  Any relatives that have cats? Pictures where you were tagged had cats?