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Re:Ask HN: Is anyone monitoring popular apps to check if the... by sva_ on Sunday September 19, 2021 @11:27AM (#28585067)
> some number of them will see ads related to some conversation they had recently by pure random chance.

Or perhaps, they're just correlating the interests of people:

1. Person A reads about X online

2. Person A tells Person B about X

3. Person B sees ads about X, without ever having searched for it, concludes they're being spied on

I'm 99.9% sure WhatsApp does this, perhaps illegally or at least grey-area.

Re:Ask HN: Is anyone monitoring popular apps to check if the... by tompazourek on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:21PM (#28586627)
Maybe WhatsApp knows that these 2 people are friends, so it tries to serve person B ads that worked for person A.
Re:Ask HN: Is anyone monitoring popular apps to check if the... by sva_ on Sunday September 19, 2021 @05:48PM (#28588256)
That's was the point I was trying to make. Maybe I wasn't clear