So I had a verbal conversation with a coworker yesterday and now I’m getting fed very specific ads. No possible way it’s accidental. I have most of the microphone access to apps limited, I have Google assistant turned off and no VPA setup in my home. I use a Oneplus 9 pro, does anyone have recommendations on how to further root cause this or just par for the course for using any standard android OS? Have other folks had similar experience after locking down their stock phones?
Not possible. To be explicit, he was asking me my opinion about car maintenance and if I changed the oil in my cars every X miles OR every six months, or if the expiration time of oil was BS. I told him my opinion was that the age of the oil is irrelevant unless you idle your car for many hours at a time, just change it based on the millage. Today I got fed an article about how a dude tested the oil from various cars, with various ages and miles against brand new oil and found that age made no difference on the key characteristics of the oil. That is a remarkably specific article from a VERY specific VERBAL conversation I had over a Teams call on a work computer. It certainly got me thinking but again its the first time I’ve had one of those super specific ads in a long time that made me question my privacy.
Edit: I’m getting down voted, so people don’t think this is a markably specific ad response? People really think Google is just this good to infer this type of article in less than 24 hours is just dumb luck because ‘oil change’?
Every day, millions of people discuss oil changes. If an article (was it an article or an ad?) is published on oil changes on X date, it is going to coincide with a large number of unlinked conversations. Today, it was you.
Once is a coincidence, if you can prove a pattern then you should concerned.