“What would it mean for your business if you could target potential clients who are actively discussing their need for your services in their day-to-day conversations? No, it's not a Black Mirror episode—it's Voice Data, and CMG has the capabilities to use it to your business advantage.”
It’s been published by multiple sources at this point that this happens because of detected proximity. Basically, they know who you hang out with based on where your phones are, and they know the entire search history of everyone you interact with. Based on this, they can build models to detect how likely you are to be interested in something your friend has looked at before.
Yup. For companies it’s much safer to connect the dots with the giant amount of available metadata in the background than risk facing a huge backlash when people analyze what data you’re actively collecting.
Which is why people need to call out the tracking that’s actually happening in the real world a lot more, because I don’t really want my search-history leaked by proxy to people in my proximity either.