Apple says Siri isn’t sending your conversations to advertisers

The part particularly responding to the rumors reads:

Apple has by no means used Siri knowledge to construct advertising and marketing profiles, by no means made it obtainable for promoting, and by no means bought it to anybody for any goal. We’re always growing applied sciences to make Siri much more non-public, and can proceed to take action.

After The Guardian’s report in 2019, Apple apologized and adjusted its coverage, making the default setting to not retain audio recordings from Siri interactions and saying that for customers who opt-in to sharing recordings, these recordings wouldn’t be shared with third-party contractors.

Nonetheless, reviews in regards to the settlement famous that in earlier filings like this one from 2021, among the plaintiffs claimed that after they talked about model names like “Olive Backyard,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sun shades,” and “Air Jordans,” they had been served advertisements for corresponding merchandise, which they attributed to Siri knowledge.

Apple’s assertion tonight says it “doesn’t retain audio recordings of Siri interactions except customers explicitly choose in to assist enhance Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that goal. Customers can simply opt-out at any time.”

Fb responded to related theories in 2014 and 2016 earlier than Mark Zuckerberg addressed it straight, saying “no” to the query whereas being grilled by Congress over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.

So, if Apple (and Fb, Google, and so forth.) is telling the reality, then why would you see an advert later for one thing you solely talked about?

There are different explanations, and makes an attempt to verify the rumors out embrace an investigation in 2018 that didn’t discover proof of microphone spying however did uncover that some apps secretly recorded on-screen person exercise that they shipped to 3rd events.