hey david i'm thinking about taking a
trip to disney world that sounds fun
then i'm seeing ads for disney world on
my phone is my phone listening to me
this actually happened it was a news
broadcast and they tried to use this as
an example going to disney soon
and i wonder if i should airbnb there
i'm planning this trip to disney and all
of a sudden i'm seeing disney ads it's
almost like the app is listening to your
conversation was that really true no
in the way that they thought but yes in
ways that they didn't even realize
[Music]
it's sure that certain apps do have
access to your microphone because you
gave them access to your microphone for
example zoom if you want to be able to
talk to people on a zoom call zoom needs
access to your microphone but it's not
true that these apps that have
microphone access are constantly tapping
our phones listening for words and
phrases that they get send off to google
or some advertising network and
immediately send us targeted ads right
but they don't have to do that because
they have other ways to track what we're
interested in where we're going
and we're going to help you turn a lot
of those things off but one of the
really scary parts was the accelerometer
data the accelerometer is one of the
only features on your iphone that
doesn't have to ask permission to send
the data to wherever the heck it wants
to accelerometer is what detects the
minor vibrations let's say you're riding
the bus so let's say i have
turned off all the privacy features on
my phone it's all customized and i think
i'm really safe i get on a bus to new
york city
david
also has an iphone but hasn't optimized
his phone what facebook can do and other
apps is they'll see that his
accelerometer data matches mine exactly
and then they just know that we're
interested in the same things we're
going to the same places
because that little bump data so we hope
that in ios 16 or as soon as possible
apple gives us the ability to turn off
that sending of accelerometer data to
everybody similarly your location
these tech companies can use your
location and make connections you know
if you have a spouse and you start
seeing your ads that your spouse might
see
it's because they were able to build
that connection between your two phones
and now you're seeing their their ads
yeah and it doesn't even have to have
gps it could just use your ip address at
home
it's also true that if you have
siri hey siri
oh boy set up there we go yep there we
go it's also true that if you have hey s
i
i don't want to say it out loud because
it'll trigger it's listening for those
trigger words it's not recording all of
your conversations all the time unless
it happens to get accidentally activated
and there are there have been issues
with that if you're an apple person
you're like apple's better than android
and you want to win an argument we're
going to give you some ammo right here
yeah siri data and your requests are not
used to build a marketing profile and
are never sold to anyone that is not
true with google and amazon right
they're actually using what you search
for using the voice assistant to build
marketing profiles and sell you products
yeah so is your microphone listening to
you
in that case yes but the truth is that
everything you do is just being tracked
when you scroll on a social media feed
and you pause on a video for 37 seconds
they've tracked that when you've add
something to your cart and then you
abandon that cart that's been tracked
and they can also learn from your
patterns amazon is especially good at
this if you buy cat food every two weeks
don't be surprised that two weeks go by
and you start seeing cat food ads
there's also something called a
frequency illusion let me read what that
is for you after noticing something for
the first time there's a tendency to
notice it more often leading someone to
believe that it is a high frequency of
occurrence put plainly the frequency
illusion is that when a concept or thing
you just found out about suddenly seems
to crop up everywhere so bottom line is
that these big tech companies just have
a million different ways to track you
what we're going to do next is help you
cut down on those tracking mechanisms
right we can't build walls but we can
build fences
[Music]
build some fences so that what you're
doing in these apps is not then getting
sent you know you can't see the apps
can't see into their neighbor yards
neighbors neighborhoods let's open the
settings app first thing we're going to
do is go down to privacy tap on that and
let's tap on microphone let's just see
which apps can access my microphone and
right now a whole bunch is google maps
need my microphone i use it in the car
for voice search there you go it works
like half the time it's very frustrating
actually something like twitter i don't
upload my own videos or anything like
twitter i don't do their spaces things
or voice search we search now yeah no
so just ask yourself does this app need
access to my microphone a lot of the
time means there's going to be no
sometimes it'll be yes if you're not
sure turn it off to be safe and then if
you're using the app in the future it'll
just tell you to come back here and turn
it back on so we just want to make you
aware of that but here are the real tips
for you let's go back to the main page
of the settings app we're going to
scroll down and tap on safari first
thing to turn on
prevent cross-site tracking underneath
privacy and security cross-site tracking
means that when you're on one website
you go to the next one that next website
can see what you were doing on the first
one or at least see that you came from
there and possibly what you were
searching for this is going to help put
some walls up between the websites you
visit so they can't see what each other
are doing yep let's set back two
settings use chrome instead of safari
scroll down tap on chrome
allow cross website tracking we're going
to turn that switch off i think chrome
intentionally did the opposite of apple
here you do conspiracy conspiracy i
think so i think so let's tap back the
main page of settings and scroll up to
privacy
similar to prevent cross-site tracking
let's tap on tracking here allow apps to
request the track turn this right off
facebook hates this setting so much they
took out full page ads in the new york
times and said that if we turn this
setting off we're killing small
businesses
why yeah this went on allows apps to
track your activity across other
companies apps and websites just
collecting all this information about
you and you don't need it for anything
yeah it's fuzzy too it's like if you
don't understand specifically what
you're signing up for don't sign up for
it turn it all off let's tap back to the
main page of privacy scroll down to
apple advertising tap on that
personalized ads we recommend turning
the switch off turning off personalized
ads will limit apple's ability to
deliver relevant ads to you but will not
reduce the number of ads you receive
probably won't you're still going to see
high quality ads because apps don't want
to have low quality ads alongside their
stuff let's go back to the main privacy
page scroll up and tap on location
services as we mentioned location is one
way these companies can really pinpoint
who you are and the word to look out for
here is always it's privacy but it's
also battery life so whenever you see
always you're saying this app can always
drain my battery
and i think that's even more of a
compelling argument sometimes so right
now facebook has access to my location
always even when i'm not using the heck
at this point
sorry mark so let us do while using the
app maybe if you want facebook to every
location while you're using it fine also
be aware of precise location when this
is on it's just a more targeted location
of you also a battery issue that's a
pretty good start in the settings app
itself but there's even more because
individual apps also have their own
personalized ad tracking stuff in the
app and they're really burying it's very
frustrating but i thought that we just
did everything to protect our phones and
you're telling me that there's more to
do there's always more to do so let's go
to the home screen geez let's start the
journey we're on here let's start with
facebook so
on facebook tap on your account icon
lower right hand corner of the screen at
least it's simple then it's not scroll
down to settings and privacy tap on that
then tap on settings
then scroll down
and tap on add preferences
then tap add
settings then scroll down to data about
your activity from partners okay if
you're pulling your hair out at this
point
we don't blame you
use data from partners turn that switch
off well it was a lot but it's important
i mean use data from your partners we
use data that advertisers and other
partners provide to us about your
activity on their websites and apps as
well as certain offline interactions
such as purchases
[Music]
that has to do with the facebook pixel
which is on many many websites it's not
nefarious but it's it's the truth and it
is compromising your privacy yes
it could be used nefariously one thing
we notice on android is that they you
know rather nicely put facebook and
instagram right in one spot not the case
on my iphone unbelievable so
let's do instagram tell your android
friends that one means they can use that
against you let's open up instagram and
tap on your account icon lower right
hand corner of the screen then tap on
that hamburger menu upper right hand
corner of the screen okay we're gonna
tap on settings
tap ads
tap data about your activity from
partners again use data from partners
turn that switch off how about twitter
they're totally secure yeah just kidding
tap in your account icon upper left hand
corner of the screen then tap on
settings going to scroll down to find it
settings and privacy tap on privacy and
safety
scroll down to add preferences tap on
that turn off that switch next to
personalized ads unbelievable i know
that there are a ton of settings here
that we're talking about
if you're feeling overwhelmed or stuck
or searching for answers and you join
our channel we have a download of a free
pdf for our channel members so it's not
exactly free but it'll walk you through
this entire process slowly you can print
it out and
i know it's a lot you might want to
print it out too because maybe you
update the app sometimes these settings
get flipped right back on and yeah it's
true and if we stay in touch with you
too if there's new stuff
they might move it around they might
hide it somewhere else when people start
to catch on and yeah it it gets a bit
overwhelming it was overwhelming for me
when i was like looking through all
these apps and trying to find all this
stuff and digging around it just it took
a long time well yeah i mean they buried
six
levels in yeah oh wait there are more
apps
let's go back to the home screen
let's open up snapchat tap on your
account icon upper left hand corner of
the screen then tap on the settings gear
upper right hand corner of the screen
we're going to scroll down
under additional services tap manage
that's uh really descriptive so tap on
add references and you get a whole bunch
here audience-based activity-based
third-party ad networks yeah at least
the uh explanations are extremely large
and legible so if you get poor eyesight
you're gonna have to read those
turn these switches off disable third
party ad you're gonna see pop-ups you'll
still see a similar number of ads if you
disable this feature but those ads may
be less relevant to your interests
disabled you may be less profitable for
us aka it'll make us less money let's do
another app how about amazon
amazon totally secure though david yes
i'm not so sure about that
tap on your account icon bottom of the
screen then tap on your account icon
upper right hand corner of the screen
scroll down
to go to your account underneath the
account section there it's kind of a
small button you're in the account
section but then you have to go to your
account yeah you're going to start
scrolling
start scrolling to app preferences all
the way at the bottom tap advertising
preferences here we go submit your
preference show me interest-based ads
provided by amazon do not show me
interest-based ads provided by amazon
do not after selecting do not show me
interest based ads make sure you hit
that submit button that's one extra step
that they make you do make sure you get
that thank you your preferences have
been saved notification otherwise they
will not be saved how about tick tock
that's perfect yeah well actually you
can't do this on tick tock because they
have disabled your ability to turn off
personalized ads in the united states in
the united states if you live in the
european union you've got the gdpr
protecting you yeah og dpr yeah so go
into your tick-tock settings i wish i
could show you how to do it i don't know
how to do it because i can't do it on my
phone yep they used to let us do it but
now they're just selling our data and
there's nothing you could do about it
yeah so you could uninstall a tick tock
app well yeah
but let's not go crazy
crazy to stop using tick tock we hope
this video helped you answer the
question is my iphone listening to me
it's a nuanced answer of yes and no no
please give this video a thumbs up if
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thanks for watching how about tick tock
i'm sorry there's just so many apps to
change i'm just yawning how about tick
tock yep super secure what does dick
sporting does have to do with it well
it's because it's not related to disney
world so then they would you'd see
uniforms for disney world you'd see
clothes with disney outfits that's kind
of cute it's not really a good example
sorry that's all right make sure you get
some on the lens there david geez
did you get another one no i don't think
so you did