Comment by thebruce87m
1 year ago
> I have personally experienced it.
They know who is in your proximity based on standard geolocation / ip techniques, and if someone in your vicinity searches for something then you will see ads based on that.
That’s why if you are talking about a movie or product you will see ads later - someone else in the group googled it.
Obviously we don’t know 100% but I don’t think what you experienced is what you think - I have yet to see hard evidence for it happening, at the OS level anyway. I’m sure a few apps might be doing it.
Try this as a test. Just choose an utterly random thing that has as little connection to anything in your life as possible. Then just start talking about that thing for a few minutes near your phone. Then never talk about it again.
Then tell me if you start to get ads for it. I think you will. I've seen it a few times.
One recent time, I was sitting with my wife and we were joking around and I was like "Why don't they have hamster wheels for cats?". We spoke about it for a minute or two and had a laugh. She swears she didn't google it and neither did I.
The next day we both got ads for this (apparently they exist).
I concede that it may have been a one off and there may be explanations.