cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25882429
scarily... They don't need to to be this creepy, but even I'm a tad baffled by this.
Yesterday me and a few friends were at a pub quiz, of course no phones allowed, so none were used.
It came down to a tie break question of my team and another. "What is the run time of the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the ring" according to IMDb.
We answered and went about our day. Today my friend from my team messaged me - top post on his "today feed" is an article published 23 hours ago.....
Forgive the pointless red circle.... I didnt take the screenshot.
My friend isn't a privacy conscience person by any means, but he didnt open IMDb or google anything to do with the franchise and hasn't for many months prior. I'm aware its most likely an incredible coincidence, but when stuff like this happens I can easily understand why many people are convinced everyone's doom brick is listening to them....
This is the power of data collection. This can be explained without mic's listening in, not that I think they aren't.
400 phones were all located in a bar at the same time, and a significant percentage of them googled 'LOTR run time' simultaneously. All 400 phones are now associated with a likely interest in LOTR movie. It's that simple.
Individual interaction with future LOTR test prompts confirms this association for their account and so on...
It is creepy how much data miners know about us whether we like it or not.