Get out the tin foil

Boy, Facebook sure must be infiltrating our lives in just about every possible sense.. I remember a year or so ago hearing how people thought FB was listening to conversations because ads would show up for things talked about. It was denied. But, now I'm hearing they are saying it's true. I've pretty much suspected all along it was true. There is no way DH and I could talk about rattlesnakes and then an ad for a rattle snake rattler for sale at Walmart shows up in my FB feed! I mean, who even would have know that they sell those?! Another example. (these are examples where our phones are in our pockets). DH was talking with our roofer about different roof mfg's. He goes to his FB that evening and there are links to articles about roofing mfg's being sued. Just last weekend we were outside doing yard work. DH asked me to go get him the channel locks out of the tool box. A couple hours later I'm looking at FB and an ad for channel locks is in my feed. Another time we were outside talking to our neighbors visiting son. Talking about a pocket hole tool. Apparently FB didn't quite hear it right.....the ad that showed up later was for a pocket door, LOL.

The latest thing I have noticed is the new people that FB is showing me as "people I may know". Some of these people there is NO way FB would know I have any sort of connection to, unless they are mining my computer for data. Several are work contacts - people I have had contact with over the years via work emails or they are in my work outlook. Most of them are very old contacts....not even contacts anymore. They don't work at that company (different companies) anymore or we haven't done business with that company in years. I haven't emailed these people in YEARS, let alone have any connection to them whatsoever via FB or common friends.  They aren't even people I ever did or do contact on a regular basis.

I was in my work Outlook email contacts the other day and noticed a really really old contact. I don't recall if I clicked on it in outlook or not, I don't think I did. I just remember thinking to myself why do I still have him in my contacts list, but I didn't delete. He was a handyman guy my company used years and years ago and he would email me his bill. He showed up the other day as someone I might know on Facebook.

I haven't been using the Alexa feature on my new Firestick.....but I'm sure it's still able to listen via that little microphone. I'm sure it's still on and listening. In fact, I did a google search on it and found where I could listen to my Alexa commands that got recorded, under my Amazon account. I'm sure it's listening to all conversations, even if I haven't pressed the button for it to listen to my command. I found some instructions on how to toggle off the Alexa voice recordings through my Amazon account. Am I convinced that keeps them from listening? Not really, but I did it anyway. And supposedly you can turn off the microphone setting on your phone under the Facebook app. I did that, too, but DH's was never on to begin with and he still has the same "weird coincidences".

I really don't have much of a problem with ads being connected to things I search or type about on my computer or phone. But, I do have a problem that these devices are listening and recording our everyday conversations so that they can connect ads to us......let alone whatever else they are doing with the conversations...........