I am still new regarding privacy and all that, so i am sorry for any mistakes/ newbie questions.
I and my friends were talking on Discord regarding the Oxenfree plot (a game about a time loop). One of the plot points mentions a submarine. To his surprise, He received a youtube recommendation about a nuclear-powered submarine as shown:
he was a bit spooked about this and asked if Google is listening. I asked about his browser and extensions, to which he answered that he's using google chrome and the extensions below:
my question is: how did this happen, and what should he do next to avoid this happening again?
thank you in advance.
Years back, like 2004 ish, Google patented a method of using your browser to monger conversation in the room and then deliver relevant ads online based on that conversation in the room.
These days most of us expect that any internet connected device with a microphone is listening to us and feeding that data to advertisers.
They're not doing that. They have different ways of tracking you and don't need to listen to your real-life conversations, because they all (hopefully) know that if they were caught doing that, people would actually (hopefully) be upset enough to demand reform.
Take for example your location data. Is Google storing your location data? Yes. Are they selling it? I doubt it. Instead, big companies at one point were able to track your movement within stores by using your bluetooth beacon address. IDK if that's still possible, but that's more in line with the way these things pan out. Also keep in mind some companies have incentives to keep data to themselves, usually when said company peddles ads themselves. You're still being tracked and are the victim of targeted advertisement, but your data is more siloed than you think.