You're getting some downvotes, but yes, lol. I mean I'm not sure there's never any surreptitious hot mic eavesdropping going on, but people definitely often assume so when there's a more parsimonious explanation, e.g.:

Most peoples' ads are targeted based on more mundane technology, and they see hundreds of ads per day, so if even 1% of their ads overlap with something that they were just talking about, they'll still be fairly likely to see a spooky "I was just talking about that!" ad relatively frequently. Not to mention that they're likely to be thinking about a thing because their platforms are also proactively marketing that thing to them. Just pareidolia, no eavesdropping necessary.

Doesn't mean eavesdropping isn't happening-- Just means it doesn't need to be happening for that effect to occur.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

I'm in marketing, I subscribe all all marketing new sources, I run a martech stack of a bunch of different channels: paid 3rd party syndication, search intent, ecosystem intent, technographics, firmographics, psychegraphics, funding round research, paid and organic social, paid and organic SEO, display, video, in app placements, new hiring intent... none of these platforms offer me "conversational intent"

so it's only usage would be if

a) you are already cooked (or server side ID'd) b) your conversation procs a buying intent signal for an affinity cluster c) they secretly inject that signal into the data and obfuscate its source

well, now you just have worse data that's also illegal. So what's the motivation?