Is Your Phone Spying on You?

Has it ever happened to you that you and your friends talk about some product in a face to face conversation or in a chat and suddenly you start seeing ads of that product on your favorite social media platform or prefered search engine?

Well, that happens with most of us, not because our phones have become so smart that they start spying on us, it’s because of how the social media applications and search engines are developed. They have a deep learning algorithm that predicts what the user’s next possible step could be and would suggest the ads based on your interest.

Even if you are not familiar with the word ‘retargeting ads’, chances are, you would have visited some product website online and you would see its ads on your browser or the games you play or your social media feed. This is happening simply because the website accessed the cookies on your browser and now as a user, you will start receiving ads for a certain time so that you can make your buying decisions.

Study suggests that around 50% of US users are using some sort of ad blocker on their smart devices to stay away from these ads or to reduce the exposure they get from ads.

This prevents marketers from reaching their target audience. Also, as you would not get targeted ads due to ad blockers, you will end up getting a poor experience on your next online shopping.

But, is your phone spying on you?

Not in the traditional sense. Also, the social media apps or your phone’s browser is not listening to you, that is a conspiracy theory! When you accept the terms and conditions of a platform, you give them access to harvest your data and resell it, everywhere.

“If you don’t know what the product is, you’re the product!”

Majority of the apps on your phone collects your data and provides you with a unique device ID, your location data, age demographics and all can be collected into “data buckets”. Data aggregators pay to pull in the data.

But, the entire history of your searches, the locations you visited or the purchase you made are saved on your devices as the apps and phone companies are looking forward to give you the best experience. So, it comes with both pros and cons. 

In this article, we saw how the collection of data is done using your devices to make your experience better, though some platforms use this data to earn out of it.

If you do not live under the rock, you might have heard the news about multiple data breaches, analytical scandals and data piracy as well. Customers create a huge amount of data everyday on the internet.

Apps rely on data and the MarTech industry works with breakthrough technologies like Adio as well to use the inaudible tones to improve customer’s shopping experience. With better analytics systems and managed data, customers can get served with relevant information and offers.

Even in the coming time, customers will keep thinking that their phone’s are listening to them, though it’s their activities, cookies and browsing history that is predicting their next moves.