Those ads that make it seem like your phone is listening? Rather than
eavesdropping, perhaps they’re so good at understanding you that they are
actually predicting what you’ll be talking about. This isn’t as far out as it sounds.
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likely infer many of your topics of conversation.
Remember, this all rides on big data. It’s not that one time you bought this
thing, and you posted your thoughts and feelings about it, and therefore they
think maybe you’ll be interested in this other thing. It’s aggregating all the
places you’ve gone and all the things you’ve bought to make predictions of your
consumer behavior. Then that gets sold to advertisers. It’s not just about selling
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buying what an advertiser wants you to buy.
Your data is often sold to advertisers, but data brokers can also sell to other
parties, including credit-scoring and insurance companies. And because two
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disinformation, and other exclusions. The brokers put together lists that
potential advertisers might be interested in, such as homeowners, runners, or
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advertisers to ensure that their ads were not shown to African Americans. And
the company boasted to other advertisers of its ability to target teens who felt
insecure, worthless, anxious, useless, and more.
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