There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

There was a article years ago. A young woman started getting Target coupons for diapers and baby formula. A few weeks later she found out she was pregnant. She had been using her loyalty card to make purchases and had bought unscented hand cream and some other low perfume things that apparently are usually purchased by people who are expecting as their sense of smell becomes heightened and the sents become overwhelming.

Honestly I’d like to see a ban on targeted pharmaceutical advertisement. Prescription medication should be between you and your doctor.

sp3tr4l ,

And then what they found was that to be more effective was to mix up the suggestions for late term pregnancy / early childhood products with basically random nonsense…

… because if its too obvious that they are highly statistically confident that they know things about you that they shouldn’t, people get weirded out and are less likely to buy something so specifically targeted at them.

They know an insane amount, and they do not want you to know that they know that much.

spookex ,

To play the devil’s advocate, they could be putting that random junk there to see if they can find out other categories of things that you like.

PrincessLeiasCat ,

The other things were like a large purse/tote bag and a rug, so yeah it was kinda random (so it seems) but apparently the evidence is pretty solid in that case.

Doesn’t make it any less weird though.

stephen01king ,

Are we sure we can call that targeted pharmaceutical advertisement? It sounds like it could just be the algorithm accidentally discovering a correlation between expecting mothers and preference for unscented hand creams and such.

Unless Amazon did specifically program that in, I think these accidental correlation is not something you can control before it happens and trying to regulate them would be a waste of time and resources.

Nurse_Robot ,

IIRC, she miscarried and sued for the emotional distress of continued ads which followed the expected development of her (tragically lost) baby.

hperrin ,

Before I even knew I had gonorrhea, Alexa was recommending me penicillin. She also recommended I stay away from the local brothels. And to lay off the whiskey. Also, Alexa is my doctor.

wreckedcarzz ,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

“you’re going to die. but first, renew your prime subscription.”

PrincessLeiasCat ,

Lucky you then that Amazon now has their own pharmacy!

sp3tr4l ,

In case people forgot:

variety.com/…/active-listening-marketers-smartpho…

www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-l…

They (basically any large online retailer or advertiser) are, in fact, listening to everything you say near your phone, near your alexa, your echo, your smart device.

Linking heard words and phrases with your known shopping activity + a gigantic dataset + statistical analysis = they can predict all kinds of things about you, with shockingly high accuracy, and thus aim products at you.

You know how archaeologists and detectives can make a decent profile of a person or group’s daily lifestyle by analyzing your garbage?

Welcome to the cyberpunk dystopia version of that.

Ilandar ,

I’m not saying this information is wrong (I’ve previously shared 404 Media’s reporting on this as well) but as far as I know the only source for this claim is still from CMG itself. No one has independently verified that CMG is actually capable of doing this, nor has any source come forward to confirm that “yes, this is real and my company uses it”. I believe the closest we’ve had to that is a single company confirming that CMG made these same claims to them in a sales pitch. Basically, the entire story is based on marketing material that could also be complete bullshit. The tech industry is infested with grifters who will say anything to get ahead and this could just be another case of that. I understand that many people do not understand how data collection works and have been convinced for years that “the only way they could have known that is if they were listening to me” but 404 Media’s reporting on this is not definitive proof that this technology actually exists and is seeing widespread use.

noodlejetski ,

Google told 404 Media in a statement that “All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action.” The company said it had removed CMG from the Partners Program after a Google review. Amazon told 404 Media in a statement that “Amazon Ads has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.” The company added that if it becomes aware that a partner is in violation of its marketing guidelines, it may take what it sees as appropriate action.

so yeah, sounds like the company’s claims might not be completely true if they’re boasting about working with Amazon.

scytale ,

Both links are paywalled, but if I’m remembering correctly, that company (CMG) eventually had to correct their claim that phones were actively listening to everything you say. It was an overzealous marketing guy trying to oversell. They admitted in the end that they use the same info that data brokers have on you based on data gathered from your browsing and other activity, not from actively listening to you.

Siri for example is designed in a way where it “listens” for your voice to call it, but that mechanism is completely separate from the actual Siri that connects to the internet to understand you.

PrincessLeiasCat ,

I love that Siri is kinda stupid for just this very reason.

SlopppyEngineer ,

It would drain your battery like crazy if your phone would actively listen, transcribe and transmit whatever your say.

JWBananas ,
@JWBananas@lemmy.world avatar

Besides the fact that present-day battery technology makes this impossible, modern smartphones display a very obvious indicator when apps are using the microphone.

Hotword detection notwithstanding, as that happens at the hardware level.

CheeseNoodle ,

with shockingly high accuracy, and thus aim products at you.

I’m still waiting for a single targeted add to be something I want, the best they’ve done so far is try and sell me things I already own.

reddig33 ,

Too creepy? Or too crappy?

GBU_28 ,

Use it less. Or none. Solved.

Nurse_Robot ,

Wow you solved every data privacy problem. Just don’t be a consumer, why didn’t I think of that? It’s not the companies that are the problem, it’s our fault!

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