Published Feb 28, 2026, 9:30 AM EST
Jack has been a contributing author at MakeUseOf since June 2024, specializing in entertainment and its associated technology. He is passionate about creating engaging content that inspires and informs, having published articles and reviews in several reputable online resources since 2010, including SlashGear, BestReviews, and Ezvid Wiki.
Jack's work has taken him far and wide, from South America to Europe, South Asia, and the Far East, and his experiences continue to influence his writing. As a graduate with a BA in music technology, he is particularly interested in new developments in this field, including music hardware, music creation software, and music streaming services.
When he’s not researching and trying out the latest software and devices, Jack enjoys riding his motorcycles to far-flung destinations, playing guitar, and creating music and vlogs using Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro on Mac.
Just recently, I was having a conversation about whether Oreo cookies could be considered a breakfast staple, and a few hours later, I sat down at my laptop to see an Oreo ad pop up on my social media feed. This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve seen related ads after discussing products or services, and it seems most people I talk to have had a similar experience.
Like me, they wonder whether their phones are secretly listening through their microphones and feeding conversations to advertisers. Of course, major tech companies strongly deny this, insisting they do not use live microphone recordings for ad targeting. Yet the ads can feel eerily precise to be pure coincidence. So what’s really going on?
You’re being profiled more deeply than you realize
Your digital behavior paints a clearer picture than your conversations
By now, we are all aware that companies like Google, Meta (which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram), and Amazon collect enormous amounts of data, including search queries, location history, app usage, purchases, browsing behavior, and even how long you pause while browsing.
I may not have searched for Oreo cookies, but modern advertising systems rely on predictive models trained on millions of data points that don’t even need to use my microphone to envision my interests with incredible accuracy.
Let’s say I watched a few baking or snack-related videos, bought lunchbox items online, followed some food influencers, or engaged with nostalgic or comfort-food content. Modern platforms can statistically predict where I want to go next, even without having recorded my audio. So when an ad appeared right after a real-world conversation, my brain linked the two, but it’s just as likely that the algorithm was already primed to show it to me.
Related
The microphone question
Are tech companies really not listening?
Credit: Jack Mitchell/MakeUseOf
Companies like Google and Meta officially state they do not use live microphone recordings for ad targeting, and I can see how constantly recording and processing audio for billions of users would be expensive, legally risky, and extremely difficult to hide. Their systems are already under intense scrutiny from regulatory boards at home and abroad from the get-go.
However, we also know that voice assistants like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri are designed to listen for “wake words,” and the small print often suggests that recordings are reviewed by humans for “quality control” purposes. So while it’s never been proven that companies engage in ad-based eavesdropping, there is significant evidence of microphone-based data collection on a massive scale. While there is certainly a distinction here, it’s not exactly comforting as far as I’m concerned.
Your devices still talk even if you don’t
Cross-device tracking and shared connections
Apparently, there’s a lot more to advertising in the digital age than what I learned from watching episodes of Mad Men. Modern ad ecosystems operate across multiple devices, including phones, laptops, smart TVs, tablets, and even smart home devices, which can be linked through accounts, cookies, IP addresses, and behavioral patterns.
They even link devices on the same network, meaning people in the same household can be grouped together based on similar interests. So an ad triggered by someone else’s activity can appear on my device soon after we discussed the topic in person. In this case, what feels like listening may be data correlation over a shared connection.
How to protect yourself if you’re concerned
Some practical steps to reduce tracking on your devices
It’s easy to become complacent about how our data is used in the 21st century. If, like me, the idea of hyper-targeted ads bothers you, there are steps you can take to make them less invasive. These include reviewing ad personalization settings in your accounts, disabling microphone access for apps that don’t need it, turning off location history (where possible), and using privacy-focused browsers or search engines.
Keeping a strict digital housekeeping regimen also helps, including clearing cookies regularly, limiting cross-device logins, and using a VPN. While none of these solutions is perfect, reducing the amount of behavioral data you share makes predictive profiling less precise, and ads may be fewer and feel less invasive. As far as I’m concerned, taking control of my privacy settings isn’t paranoid; it’s prudent.
Awareness is your strongest defense
The eerie accuracy of online ads reveals just how powerful data analytics has become. While I’ll reiterate that there’s no confirmed evidence that major tech platforms are secretly recording our everyday conversations for ad targeting, the efficacy of behavioral tracking is undeniable.
To me, whether tech companies are listening in on my private conversations or building algorithms that predict my interests with human-like intuition, it still feels like surveillance, and there should be more transparency on their part, beyond a checkbox at the end of a multi-page user agreement.
If you value privacy, the safest approach is to practice informed caution by understanding how data is collected, adjusting your privacy settings, and reducing unnecessary permissions. Because whether they are listening or not, they are certainly always learning.