EFF: Facebook Doesn’t Need To Listen Through Your Microphone To Serve You Creepy Ads
Facebook Doesn’t Need To Listen Through Your Microphone To Serve You Creepy Ads In ten total hours of testimony in front of the Senate and the House this week, Mark Zuckerberg was able to produce only one seemingly straightforward, privacy-protective answer. When Sen. Gary Peters asked Zuckerberg if Facebook listens to users through their cell phone microphones in order to collect information with which to serve them ads, Zuckerberg confidently said, “No.” What he left out, however, is that Facebook doesn’t listen to users through their phone microphones because it doesn’t have to . Facebook actually uses even more invasive, invisible surveillance and analysis methods, which give it enough information about you to produce uncanny advertisements all the same. Users’ fear and even paranoia about hyper-targeted adds is warranted — just not for the exact reasons they might think. Suspicions that Facebook listens to its users’ conversations have been swirling for years, prompting...