With the rise of social media platforms, search engine giants, and artificial intelligence voice bots, privacy concerns have come to the forefront of conversations. We are here to address your concerns and determine if the allegation is a myth or fact.
Does Facebook listen to your conversations and serve advertisements based off of them?
This past June, Kelli Burns, a professor at University of South Florida, spoke out about her concerns regarding Facebook listening to conversations. She believed that the social network was listening to people’s conversations. While she wasn’t the first person to question the social giant, she helped create a wave of mass concern.
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Of course, the professor’s fears made headlines and alarmed Facebook users worldwide. If you think about it, her worry is not extremely far-fetched. The network does require permission to use your microphone for capturing video and sharing a live stream. However, it would violate its privacy policy to be listening and targeting ads based off of your conversation.
Facebook issued a statement shortly after the hysteria was covered and stated that it does not use your microphone to inform ads. They only use ads based off of your profile information and activity on the site. If you are concerned with Facebook still, you can turn off the access to the microphone in the general settings of your phone.
Is Gmail targeting you with ads by scanning your emails for keywords?
You might have heard a rumor going around that Google is scanning emails sent to and from Gmail accounts. This in fact is very true. In fact, it has been going on for over two years. Google’s automated systems analyzes and scans emails. They are acting legally, as this change was noted in a privacy update notice.
What does this mean for you? Many people do not think this is the worst thing that Google does because the same scanner will look through emails to determine if they are spam. However, it will mean extremely targeted ads. Google uses information from emails and search results, map requests, and the videos you watch on YouTube to share advertisements.
Capturing relevant information about customers, fans, followers, and friends enable us to create more personalized interactions.
Does Alexa save recordings and hear everything that you say, even if you aren’t speaking to it?
Yes, Alexa does save recordings and hears everything. Basically, the voice box is always listening for commands and records it all. This is just as invasive as Google and Amazon tracking your web activity, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.
What does Amazon do with the data it gains from Alexa? Well, whenever you speak to the box, your voice is sent to a server which then determines how to respond to your query. Essentially, in order to work the device needs to listen at all times for the wake word. You can listen to your previous searches via the Alexa app. Users have the capability to delete recordings on Amazon. Amazon uses the recordings to educate its AI system on dialects and casual speech.
Are you seeing advertisements based off of sites that you have visited?
This is also very true. Marketers are able to target you based off of your web history. If you were looking at specific products or website, you might notice them pop up on different sites and social networks. The process is called retargeting and occurs because each website places a cookie on your browser enabling you to view its advertisements.
Are you curious about the changing world of social media and search engine optimization? Kraus Marketing specializes in digital marketing, SEO, and social media. We help companies in the tri-state area create and implement successful digital marketing campaigns. Contact us today to learn how we can help you.