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Is my smartphone listening to me? Too many creepy stories are out there about suspiciously perfect ads appearing after just a conversation with a friend!

So Adam starts getting a little paranoid and tries an experiment with some friends. Then he brings It to Chris to prove that our phone’s microphones have to be spying on us.

Welcome to the world of digital marketing which is still right in front of us but many people don’t entirely understand.

Marketing Tech from Easy to Creepy Magic

Here’s the diagram of marketing technologies that Chris draws for Adam as he explains whether a phone is listening or not.

Links & Resources

What the big companies say

• Google’s policies for app developers

Lots of articles linked back to this one article… which Chris said was more sensational than getting to the bottom of anything.

• Vice: Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia: Here's how I got to bottom of the ads-coinciding-with-conversations mystery

Patents that Adam mentions

• Facebook secures patent to track users' TV viewing with microphones, cameras, GPS

Studies we mention by universities or independent firms:

• Gizmodo: These Academics Spent the Last Year Testing Whether Your Phone Is Secretly Listening to You

• BBC: Why phones that secretly listen to us are a myth

What is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon?

TED Talk from professor Zeynep Tufekci: We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads

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