Last week, Apple paid $95m to settle a lawsuit over allegations that employees heard conversations recorded by Siri.
This seemingly gave credence to the most pervasive conspiracy theory of the digital age: Our phones are constantly listening to us and giving that data to advertisers.
Not so fast…
… says Apple, which reiterated its stance on Siri-related privacy in a new statement. Apple claims it:
- “Never” used Siri data for marketing.
- “Never” sold Siri data to anyone.
- Is “constantly developing technologies” to make Siri more secure.
Both Facebook and Amazon have also denied that they record users.
But this is a conspiracy theory, so we must point out that of course they’d say that.
So, why can’t we accept their denial?
The conspiracy is simply very believable — the tech obviously exists and, unlike other conspiracies, it’s clear who would benefit from this.
Plus, lots of apps do track everything you do, even if they aren’t literally listening to your conversations, and give that information to advertisers.
The Verge points out that wireless networks even track multiple users, so if you mention pizza in conversation and your friend looks up local spots, you might still get ads for pizza.
There’s also the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon…
… or “frequency illusion,” which is when you start to see more of a given thing — not because it’s actually more common, but because you’ve trained your brain to notice it.
In this case, it might not be that you’re actually getting more pizza ads, you might just be noticing more pizza ads because you suspect your phone is spying on you.
