I can say, with a degree of certainty, that at least once this year you were surprised to see an online ad promoting a product you had a conversation about with a friend or family. It happened to me earlier this year — I casually mentioned to my coworker that I was planning to buy a Swifter mop and then lo and behold! I was served with an online ad for that very product. Google’s timing seemed uncannily accurate — given the fact that I had never done an online search for Swifter or visited a webpage even remotely related to it.
How was Google so spot on with its targeting? Was it listening to my conversations?
I put this question in front of a couple of Googlers — who work in the Ad division — and they both assured me that even the idea of Google listening to its users is absurd. According to them, the reason why Google is so accurate is that the advancements in Machine Learning have enabled them to predict a user’s intent with an unprecedented precision — without the need to eavesdrop on their conversations.
Let’s take a quick detour here to familiarize ourselves with how Online Paid Advertisement works. Primarily, you have 2 types of ads:
1. Search Ads: As the name implies, Google show you those ads when your search query contains keywords that are related to an advertiser’s product or service.
2. Display Ads: Unlike Search Ads, the link between your action and why you get served with a particular ad isn’t that straightforward. You might be seeing an ad for various reasons: a. You may have searched for the advertiser’s product, b. You may have visited a website related to that product, c. Google may be serving you with the Display Ad because you meet the demographic criteria set by the advertiser.
So we can agree that there’s always a tangible reason behind why you see a specific ad online. That makes it even more creepy to get served with an ad for a product you only talked about but never interacted with in the digital space.
Recording audio without user’s consent is illegal in almost all countries. Why would Google risk an epic lawsuit to covertly record conversations of its users? What’s the payoff?
Well, let’s explore that a little.
Google makes approximately $100 Billion annually in Ad Revenue. Assuming a linear correlation between improvement in targeting & increase in revenue: if analyzing audio data improves Google’s targeting by even 1%, it will translate to a whopping $1 Billion bump in ad revenue per year! That amount of money is enough to nudge anyone to be a little mischievous if not evil.
The only way to find out if Google is listening to your conversation is by carefully analyzing the flow of information between your device and Google’s servers and keeping an eye out for either an encrypted audio file or a document containing transcripts of your conversations. The chances of finding the former are slim because of the data bandwidth constraints, however, thanks to the latest improvements in Machine Learning; transcribing user conversations and sending it back to the server isn’t that hard anymore. In any case, both of those activities are illegal and if Google is caught participating in any one of them, it’ll face multi-billion dollar fines or worse.
There might be something else contributing to why you think Google is listening to you — and it has nothing to do with technology. You might be getting served with an online ad for weeks and completely ignoring it. That’s not a surprise, as most of the web display ads tend to cling to the edges of a web page in the vain hope that, one day, you’ll at least acknowledge their presence.
However, your subconscious mind might be busy registering them, a phenomenon called “Priming” in psychology. Enough exposure to an ad might push you to either buy the product or, at the very least, talk about it.
This is where, in my opinion, the belief “Google is listening to me” stems from. Now after having talked about the product, when you see the ad again, you not only acknowledge it but are also surprised/creeped out by it. The only logical explanation then is that “Google must be listening to me”.
Google should take some action to nip this urban legend in bud. As an advertiser, I’ll be excited to see a case study on this phenomenon — as it makes Google Display Ads look good — it means they are more effective than we thought.