Tech-Tock

 Stories to get paranoid by, preposition:

I spend enough time on Facebook to get a sense of the ads it throws my way. I can recognize when my browsing or my purchases trigger a shift in ads that appear and I'm ok with it. I also know what shouldn't show up. Today, something showed up.

I was sitting on the couch, expertly procrastinating, when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, so I answered it. The caller identified herself as an employee of CVS and she mumbled some question. I wasn't 100% sure that the call was spam so I asked her to repeat herself and eventually, I could hear that she asking about my pain conditions in various joints and limbs. Weird, but who knows. So I said, "you are asking me if I have any pain? You are calling from CVS so you know what medicines I take." She said something to the effect of "yes" but still wanted to know about my pains. I told her I had none currently (and resisted all snarky remarks that could have followed, so I deserve some credit for that) and she said "thank you" and hung up.

Nothing any more weird about that than any other daily weirdness. But then, a couple of hours later, there I am, scrolling through Facebook and I see an ad for CVS! I didn't go to the website or search online for their stores or products. And yet somehow, the ear in the machine has detected the presence of CVS in my life.

"Well," you say, "one of your devices must have an assistant who is listening." I have no siri or alexa or echo this or ring doorbell that. I do have a phone. Does this mean that my own phone is listening in on my calls and communicating my keywords to my web-identity which is used to create targeted ads? Does that mean that any private phone call is automatically audited by my phone and immediately part of the data mine that fuels industry?

I think that the sacred relationship I assumed I had with my phone is now void.

How do I turn that off? If I want something to listen when I talk, I will ask for its attention. I don't want to have to worry about spies in the house of me.