That's what my article is about: it's about how I'm certain people will use this settled-out-of-court lawsuit as "evidence" that Apple are spying and targeting ads, but it's very clear that's not what was happening here.
Another one I forgot to mention: Google explicitly tracks your location history unless you turn it off, and you'd be foolish to think that they won't (or couldn't) save the data anyway. People have done experiments showing dramatic improvements in battery life using AOSP without Google telemetry and spyware.
The microphone thing is false. You can try the takeout feature (or equivalent) across multiple providers to confirm that.
I seriously don't trust anything on a very deep level. Like I said, I've seen too much evidence that these companies are run by snakes that can only be trusted in certain ways. You might not agree, and I'm not prepared to argue all that tonight (I keep hitting the comment rate limit anyway). Just try to remain skeptical both ways if you don't believe we're being spied on, ok?
If companies are willing to track your every click and mouse movement, every footstep and slight movement you make with your phone even while you are asleep, build and bundle keyboard apps to capture what you type, monitor you with AI, etc., are you seriously surprised that they would not also listen to you? None of that stuff I just described is fiction. It's established tech that has been documented over time. The only reason it's not 100% illegal is because the EULA probably covers it.
I swear people who think they aren't listening when they can seem like people who would be shocked to learn that an armed carjacker might demand your wallet in addition to your car. Unreal...
Oh yeah one more tip. Try to use the data export feature from Google or Facebook. You might just be surprised what you find. I've heard of people finding recordings of private conversations picked up by Google devices. I personally found hundreds of Facebook messages and posts that I deleted with a tool, and aren't visible to anyone (OK maybe the messages make sense but not the posts).