Subscribe now

Technology

Majority of people believe their devices spy on them to serve up ads

There is no evidence that advertisers use covert recordings of conversations to target people with adverts, an accusation widely denied by the industry, and yet this belief persists

By Chris Stokel-Walker

22 November 2024

Your phone isn’t listening

miodrag ignjatovic/Getty Images

Most people believe that they have received an online advert as a result of their devices covertly listening to an offline conversation, despite there being no evidence that this takes place.

Joanna Strycharz at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and her colleagues surveyed 886 people in the US, the Netherlands and Poland to discover their views about online advertising. The team chose these countries believing that they represented a range of potential opinions about surveillance, with US privacy laws generally seen as weaker than European ones.

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox! We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

Sign up

To continue reading, subscribe today with our introductory offers