I don’t think anything was listening. It was either a coincidence, or maybe your son had seen the same blogspam ad recently? Ads don’t often relate to our recent conversations but we really notice when they do, especially when we’re aware of how creepy companies like meta and google are.
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The problem is that, as we venture forward, with every tick on the clock, the “data harvesters” will apply more and more methods to achieve their goal (methods like the one @nephros posted above). Methods of which most of us will be unaware of until it will be a bit late to protect our data.
Correct me if I’m wrong but, whenever you connect to the internet with any browser and visit any site, the browser has to give out your device unique ID, correct? So, even by accepting the absolutely necessary cookies, your data is collected under your unique device ID. Now, if you log-in to any site in order to use their service [bank, e-shop, email, social media (which I also do not have, at least to my knowledge) etc, especially more than one time], the device ID will be firmly bonded with you, and they will be able to follow you anywhere.
Also, if you do not block 100% all trackers (even the new ones that might not be on the list just yet), this small leak is enough to do the “damage” since all trackers feed the same companies.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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Not literary as they demand content with public IP.
OTOH, many browsers and webpages does that that anyway. On various ways.
Can’t the answer be found with predictability? Advertisement companies want to predict which product you want to buy. The best way for them would be to know enough of you to predict your pattern of thinking well enough to have a few correct hits a week, I’d say? And I presume this can be achieved by having enough data on you, and people like you. This seems to be much easier for these companies than continuously listening to consumers devices, because they already have data provided by users of in this case whatsapp, fb, insta (which people do you contact at what time, which posts do you like at what time, which channels do you follow, etc etc)
This is the correct answer. Google & Facebook know who your loved ones are. SFOS is “safe(r)”, but it cannot automagically protect you from things that aren’t even happening on your device. Or from shooting yourself in the foot by using Facebook & fishy Android browsers.
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