Earlier today when I was having a discussion with someone about the differences
between regular and street-legal golf carts I had my cell phone in my hand. An hour later I got a spam email with the subject line Your Name Came Up For a Club Car Golf Cart Reward. 
Coincidence? I think not. My phone was spying on me.
I've turned off quite a few sneaky features on my phone, but it seems like whenever there's an operating system update the company throws in a new wrinkle. Time to revisit the issue again. I turned to the internet for advice on figuring out this one, and found a helpful article called Your Phone Is Secretly Always Recording: How to Stop Google From Listening.
I have an iPhone, so there's not as much Google running in the background as there would be on an Android phone, but I followed the directions and turned off things in the Google app. I opened up the Privacy setting and and turned off the microphone permission for everything but a voice recorder app. While I was at it I also disabled "Hey Siri", which I never use.
I'd like to think that my actions permanently shut down all the ways the phone can figure out what I'm talking about, but I know that today was just a temporary fix. The tech companies will figure out a new way to do it, and I'll have to repeat my work again.
Five years ago today: I'm A Guardian of Magnificent Wisdom
Very spooky.
ReplyDeleteI checked and OK Google was already turned off but I don't remember turning it off. It must have come in the off position.
ReplyDeleteGood job staying on top of things.
DeleteI'm not into golf at all, and have been receiving a notice about a golf cart being shipped. I just delete it. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteSo it may be a coincidence that I received this message for the first time after discussing a topic for the first time? No matter what the scenario, I deleted the message and the 20 other spams.
DeleteAnd I get random emails about winning a golf cart, if I only click on the Status button. I don't.
ReplyDeleteSo the probability of my phone listening to me and sending me targeted emails is becoming less and less probable.
DeleteI seriously feel so violated. Daily. All of this information they can find (and sell) about me and what I'm doing really makes me furious.
ReplyDeleteI agree. That's why I do what I can to try and shut them down.
DeleteThat's super icky that they do that.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteA few months ago, sitting in our family room where we have an Amazon Echo, I was talking with my husband about a book I read that was becoming a movie. Next day there were advertisements on my FB page for the same book! Yeah, they are listening! I delete the Google App on my phone a while ago and got Duck Duck Go instead.
ReplyDeleteI use Firefox on all of my devices, which offers some tracking protections. Even though Duck Duck Go is a search option, it doesn't seem to be as robust as Google.
DeleteOnce I was THINKING something and an ad popped up. Now that IS scary.
ReplyDeleteThe scariest yet.
DeleteRecently, I had a conversation with a neighbor who has just gotten into scuba diving. I'm a diver myself, so I talked to him about diving and some of the places I've been. No, my phone was not in my hand, and I did nothing online related to this subject. In the next few days I received numerous online ads about scuba diving. This is an outrage, and should result in almost guaranteed prison terms for the people who do this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! I agree that the whole thing needs to be stopped, but I'm not sure that prison would work until the laws against this type of thing are majorly beefed up.
DeleteSometimes I think it can actually read my mind!
ReplyDelete