20250907 - 不，你的iPhone并没有在偷听你。但真相甚至更糟糕 - No, Your iPhone Isn't Listening to You. But the Truth Is Even Worse

• 分类: Clippings
• 创建: 2025-09-07
• 标签: 隐私, 数据经纪人, 广告投放, 智能手机, 数字助手, 数据保护, 用户行为, 广告技术

No, Your iPhone Isn't Listening to You. But the Truth Is Even Worse

摘要 (Summary)

本文讨论了智能手机是否在监听用户的问题。作者通过亲身经历和专家观点解释，尽管人们常有手机在监听的错觉，但实际上手机并没有在秘密录音以投放广告。相反，广告系统依赖用户的行为数据和模式进行精准投放。文中提到了数据经纪人、身份提供商和平台如何协同工作以实现广告的精准投放。此外，文章还探讨了数据隐私和保护措施，强调了数据经纪人在广告行业中的重要角色。

要点 (Key Facts)

• 智能手机没有在秘密录音以投放广告，广告系统依赖用户行为数据和模式。
• 数据经纪人、身份提供商和平台通过协同工作实现广告的精准投放。
• 用户可以通过减少数据共享、使用隐私工具和定期审查权限来保护隐私。
• 智能音箱和数字助手可能会监听特定唤醒词，但这与广告投放无关。
• 广告技术依赖于对用户行为的预测和分析，而不是窃听。

正文 (Content)

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Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

No, Your iPhone Isn't Listening to You. But the Truth Is Even Worse 不，你的 iPhone 并没有在偷听你。但真相甚至更糟糕

If you want a monster, it's not a hot mic. It's more about shadowy presences lurking on the internet.
如果你想要一个怪物，那不是一个热麦克风。更像是潜伏在互联网上的阴暗存在。

The bartender's first hoot is so clean and high-pitched it sounds piped in from the ceiling speakers — a single whooo that slices through the post-punk and clinking glassware. My friend Michael jolts on his barstool, beer sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
酒保的第一声呼喊如此清脆高亢，听起来像是从天花板上的扬声器传来的——一声尖锐的“嘘”，划破了后朋克音乐和玻璃器皿的叮当声。我的朋友迈克尔在吧台凳上猛地一震，啤酒晃得差点溢出杯沿。

"Did you hear that owl?" he whispers.
“你听到那只猫头鹰的声音了吗？”他低声问道。

"Not an owl," I say, matter-of-factly, wiping condensation from my glass before it drips onto the bar. The bartender, in his mid-30s with slicked-back hair and an immaculate black apron, lets out another whooo.
“不是猫头鹰，”我实事求是地说，擦去玻璃杯上的水汽，免得它滴到吧台上。酒保三十多岁，头发向后梳得整齐，系着无可挑剔的黑色围裙，又发出一声“嘘”。

"It's Tourette's," I add quietly into his ear. He takes a long, slow swig of his hefeweizen, processing. I have a close family friend with a similar tic.
“是图雷特综合征，”我轻声在他耳边补充道。他慢慢地喝了一大口小麦啤酒，思考着。我有一个亲密的家庭朋友也有类似的抽搐症状。

We let our conversation wander — plans for later that summer and the Lakers' offseason moves. Ten minutes in, he caves, as he usually does, checking a buzz from his pocket. He opens Instagram and stops, his confusion unmistakable.
我们让话题随意游走——讨论那个夏天晚些时候的计划和湖人队的休赛期动态。十分钟后，他像往常一样忍不住了，查看口袋里传来的震动。他打开 Instagram，然后停住了，脸上露出明显的困惑。

"What?" I ask, leaning in as the bartender slides us our check.
“怎么了？”我问道，凑过去时酒保正好把账单递给我们。

Your iPhone Isn't Listening to You, but the Truth Is Even More Unsettling

Filling the screen of his iPhone 16 Pro Max, clad in a scuffed clear case, sits a sponsored post: "Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month. Donate Today."
他的 iPhone 16 Pro Max 屏幕上，装在一个磨损的透明保护壳里，显示着一则赞助帖子：“图雷特综合征宣传月。今天就捐款吧。”

Michael's voice drops into a register I don't usually hear outside ghost stories. "We literally just talked about Tourette's. How did I get this ad already?"
迈克尔的声音低沉，带着一种我平时只有在鬼故事里才会听到的语气。“我们刚刚才谈到妥瑞氏症，怎么这么快就收到这个广告？”

I manage a laugh that's only half genuine. "Your phone isn't listening to you." Even as I say it, I know how razor-thin the reassurance sounds. He signs the receipt, pockets the phone and mutters, " So if my phone isn't listening, then what is it?"
我勉强挤出一个半真半假的笑声。“你的手机没有在偷听你。”即使我说这话时，我也知道这种安慰听起来多么苍白无力。他签了收据，把手机放进口袋，嘀咕道：“如果我的手机没在偷听，那它到底在干什么？”

It's a question that has reverberated across countless conversations dating back to the start of the smartphone era two decades ago. Today's phones — from Apple's iPhone lineup to Androids from Samsung, Google, Motorola and others — are far more powerful and fully woven into the fabric of our daily existence, ever on standby to assist in all manner of tasks, but also reaching out to us through a steady stream of prompts and alerts.
这个问题自智能手机时代开始的二十年前就一直在无数对话中回荡。如今的手机——从苹果的 iPhone 系列到三星、谷歌、摩托罗拉等品牌的安卓手机——功能远超以往，完全融入了我们日常生活的方方面面，随时待命协助我们完成各种任务，同时也通过源源不断的提示和提醒与我们互动。

It would be eerie if it weren't so commonplace.
如果不是如此常见，这会让人感到毛骨悚然。

But underlying the well-appreciated utility, there has always been a gnawing sense of unease. It's not just the phones themselves, but the sweeping online-ness of our lives, from our social media postings to our Amazon purchases, from our Snap Maps to our Google searches and ChatGPT queries. Technology knows us intimately, often too close for comfort.
但在广受赞赏的实用性背后，始终有一种令人不安的隐忧。不仅仅是手机本身，而是我们生活中无处不在的网络化，从我们的社交媒体帖子到亚马逊购物记录，从 Snap Maps 到谷歌搜索和 ChatGPT 查询。科技对我们的了解太过深入，往往让人感到不安。

When a phone seems to be listening to us randomly, we're not wrong to feel like a boundary has been crossed. That feeling has created a wariness that just won't go away.
当手机似乎在随机监听我们时，我们感觉某个界限被越过了，这种感觉并非毫无根据。这种感觉引发了一种挥之不去的警惕。

"This conspiracy theory has been going on for literally decades," says Serge Egelman, research director of the Usable Security and Privacy group at the Berkeley-affiliated International Computer Science Institute and co-founder of AppCensus, which audits mobile apps for privacy.
“这种阴谋论已经持续了几十年，”伯克利附属国际计算机科学研究所可用安全与隐私小组的研究主任塞尔日·埃格尔曼（Serge Egelman）说道，他也是 AppCensus 的联合创始人，该公司专门审计移动应用的隐私问题。

Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

Your phone isn't listening, for good reasons你的手机没有在监听，原因很充分

Outside the bar, Beverly Boulevard shimmers under a neon glow in the lingering heat of an early-summer Los Angeles night. I tell my friend there are lots of reasons that ad appeared on his iPhone — but none of them involve a microphone listening.
在酒吧外，贝弗利大道在初夏洛杉矶夜晚的余热中，在霓虹灯的照耀下闪闪发光。我告诉我的朋友，他的 iPhone 上出现那条广告有很多原因——但没有一个涉及麦克风监听。

The truth is actually very straightforward. Ordinary even. And that's even more unsettling.
真相其实非常简单。甚至可以说是平常。但这反而更令人不安。

"It's far more sinister than a hot mic," says Egelman.
“比起一个始终开启的麦克风，这要阴险得多，”Egelman 说。

There's no credible evidence that your phone runs a secret, always-on microphone to target ads, and there are clear technical and policy reasons why.
没有可信的证据表明你的手机会运行一个秘密的、始终开启的麦克风来定向投放广告，而且有明确的技术和政策原因解释为什么不会这样。

Independent researchers have gone looking for covert "listening" and found none, including a definitive 2018 Northeastern University study that has yet to be superseded. What they did catch in a handful of cases were screen recordings or image and video uploads to third parties. Creepy, sure, but not a hot mic.
独立研究人员曾试图寻找隐秘的“偷听”行为，但没有发现任何证据，包括 2018 年东北大学的一项权威研究，至今未被推翻。他们在少数情况下发现的是屏幕录制或图片和视频被上传到第三方。确实令人毛骨悚然，但并不是麦克风在偷听。

Laws matter, too. The bans intercepting conversations without consent, and many states (like California) require all parties to consent, stacking civil and even criminal liability on covert, continuous capture. An "always-listening for ads" feature would constantly record non-consenting bystanders and invite massive legal exposure. I know that's not completely reassuring, but that's why it's implausible in practice.
法律也很重要。联邦《窃听法》禁止未经同意拦截对话，许多州（如加利福尼亚州）要求所有相关方都同意，否则偷偷持续录音将面临民事甚至刑事责任。一种“始终监听以投放广告”的功能会不断录下未经同意的旁观者的声音，从而引发巨大的法律风险。我知道这并不能完全让人放心，但这就是为什么在实践中这种功能不太可能存在的原因。

When I run the bar moment by ad-tech veteran Ari Paparo, he doesn't flinch. Paparo helped build the pipes — he founded the Beeswax DSP (acquired by Comcast's FreeWheel) and led product management at AppNexus/DoubleClick — so he's seen exactly how ad targeting really works.
当我向广告技术资深人士阿里·帕帕罗提到酒吧里的那一刻时，他毫不犹豫。帕帕罗参与构建了广告技术的管道——他创立了 Beeswax DSP（被 Comcast 的 FreeWheel 收购），并在 AppNexus/DoubleClick 领导产品管理——所以他非常清楚广告定位的真实运作方式。

"I'm very confident this is not happening. The phone is not actually listening to you," he says. "I would say that 100% of my colleagues in the advertising world agree with me."
“我非常确信这种情况不会发生。你的手机并没有真的在听你说话，”他说。“我可以说，广告界的同事 100%都同意我的看法。”

I know that's a tough pill to swallow, but he offers the real and almost boring explanation for why it feels uncanny: People are predictable. "The ads are attempting to guess what you're interested in," he says. "It's all statistics."
我知道这很难接受，但他给出了一个真实的、几乎有些无聊的解释，说明为什么会感觉如此诡异：人的行为是可以预测的。“广告试图猜测你感兴趣的东西，”他说。“这一切都是基于统计数据。”

Simple version, for the record: Ads follow your behavior. No listening required.
简单来说，记录在案：广告跟随你的行为。不需要偷听。

Here's why you get ads that feel like they're listening这就是为什么你会看到感觉像是在“偷听”的广告

It feels like your phone is listening because the systems that serve you ads thrive on your patterns — they don't need your whispered secrets. Here's the breakdown on how an eerily suspicious advertisement makes it to your phone.
感觉你的手机在偷听，是因为为你提供广告的系统依赖于你的行为模式——它们不需要你私下的秘密。以下是关于一个令人不安的广告如何出现在你手机上的详细解释。

Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

Think of four players working in sequence: platforms, advertisers, identity providers and data brokers. (There are extra middlemen, including publishers, ad exchanges, verification and measurement providers, doing more behind the scenes.)
想象有四个参与者按顺序工作：平台、广告主、身份提供商和数据经纪人。（还有额外的中间人，包括出版商、广告交易所、验证和测量提供商，在幕后做更多的事情。）

One: The platform (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok). This is home turf. The platform watches what you do inside the app: what you follow, linger on, save, search and tap on. It also knows basic context about you, like your rough location, device model, language and time of day, and it runs the auction that decides which ad you see. The platform's model predicts what you're likely to do next (scroll, tap, buy, donate, etc.) and ranks ads by a mix of price, predicted response and ad quality. If it thinks you're very likely to act, a lower-bid ad can beat a higher-bid one.
一：平台（Instagram、YouTube、Facebook、TikTok）。这是主场。平台会观察你在应用内的行为：你关注什么、停留在什么内容上、保存什么、搜索什么以及点击什么。它还了解关于你的一些基本背景信息，比如大致位置、设备型号、语言和一天中的时间，并且它会运行决定你看到哪个广告的竞价。平台的模型会预测你接下来可能做什么（滚动、点击、购买、捐赠等），并根据价格、预测响应和广告质量的综合来对广告进行排名。如果它认为你很可能会采取行动，那么出价较低的广告也可能击败出价较高的广告。

Two: The advertisers (brand, nonprofit, campaign). They bring a goal (clicks, purchases, donations), a budget and the creative (images, video, text). Many also bring their own customer lists — emails or phone numbers of past buyers or donors — which the platform hashes (turns into one-way fingerprints so it can look for matches without seeing the raw addresses) and tries to match to accounts. While hashing helps with privacy, it isn't the same as anonymity: Matches are still possible if both sides hash the same inputs. From there, the advertiser can ask the platform to find people who behave like those customers (lookalikes). They can also set simple guardrails: cities, ZIP codes, age ranges, schedule windows and "don't show to people who already bought."
二：广告主（品牌、非营利组织、竞选活动）。他们带着目标（点击量、购买、捐款）、预算和创意（图片、视频、文字）而来。许多广告主还会带来自己的客户列表——过去购买者或捐款者的电子邮件或电话号码——平台会将这些信息进行哈希处理（将其转化为单向指纹，以便在不查看原始地址的情况下寻找匹配），并尝试与账户进行匹配。虽然哈希处理有助于保护隐私，但它并不等同于匿名：如果双方对相同的输入进行哈希处理，仍然可能实现匹配。从这里开始，广告主可以要求平台寻找行为与这些客户相似的人群（类似人群）。他们还可以设置简单的限制条件：城市、邮政编码、年龄范围、时间安排以及“不要向已经购买的人展示”。

Three: Identity providers (the matchmakers). These companies help link records that belong together — your email, your phone number, your connected TV, the laptop on your home Wi-Fi — without directly handing your name around. They keep identity graphs that say "these devices likely belong to the same person or household," which helps advertisers measure whether an ad on one screen led to action on another. Think of them as the glue that makes cross-device campaigns and measurement possible.
第三：身份提供商（媒人）。这些公司帮助连接属于同一人的记录——你的电子邮件、电话号码、联网电视、家中 Wi-Fi 上的笔记本电脑——而无需直接传递你的姓名。他们维护身份图谱，显示“这些设备很可能属于同一个人或同一个家庭”，这有助于广告商衡量在一个屏幕上看到的广告是否在另一个屏幕上引发了行动。可以把他们看作是跨设备广告活动和效果评估的粘合剂。

Four: Data brokers (the collectors and wholesalers). These firms (LiveRamp, Acxiom, TransUnion) buy, scrape and package information about you, then sell or license it to marketers and advertisers. There is no record as to how many data broker companies there are in the US, but there could be thousands (California keeps a public registry). They pull data from apps, websites and store loyalty programs, then ship ready-made audiences ("visited auto lots," "recent home-improvement shoppers") or labels ("new homeowner," "pet owner"). They work mostly out of sight — privacy policies often call the data "de-identified." But once those files are matched to your account, the platform's system decides when to show you an ad.
第四：数据经纪人（收集者和批发商）。这些公司（LiveRamp、Acxiom、TransUnion）购买、抓取并打包关于你的信息，然后将其出售或授权给营销人员和广告主。美国的数据经纪公司数量没有记录，但可能有数千家（加利福尼亚州有一个公开的注册表）。他们从应用、网站和商店忠诚计划中提取数据，然后提供现成的受众群体（“访问过汽车销售点”、“近期家居装修购物者”）或标签（“新房主”、“宠物主人”）。他们大多在幕后工作——隐私政策通常称这些数据为“去身份化”。但一旦这些文件与你的账户匹配，平台的系统就会决定何时向你展示广告。

"The unsettling feeling that your device is spying on you is real — but the culprit isn't a secret microphone. It's the data broker industry," Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells me.
“你感觉设备在监视你的不安感是真实的——但罪魁祸首并不是隐藏的麦克风，而是数据经纪行业，”电子前沿基金会的网络安全主任 Eva Galperin 告诉我。

Now, stitch the pieces together in real time. You open Instagram. The app asks, "What ad should we show right now?" The platform checks your in-app behavior and context, sees which advertisers are aiming for people like you (including those using matched customer lists or broker-supplied groups) and runs an instant auction to show you an ad.
现在，实时将这些碎片拼凑起来。你打开了 Instagram。应用会询问：“我们现在应该展示哪个广告？”平台会检查你在应用内的行为和上下文，查看哪些广告主正在寻找像你这样的人（包括使用匹配的客户列表或经纪人提供的群体），然后进行即时拍卖，向你展示一个广告。

If you and a friend are on the same Wi-Fi or have been on the same household network, both of you may fall into the same target bucket. If you're near a TV where a campaign just ran, that can raise the odds too — co-location and household signals say "these folks influence each other."
如果你和朋友使用同一个 Wi-Fi，或者曾经连接过同一个家庭网络，你们可能会被归入同一个目标群体。如果你在电视附近，而电视上刚刚播放了一则广告活动，这也会增加可能性——共同位置和家庭信号表明“这些人会互相影响”。

Budgets also matter. Money tends to concentrate in hours and places where the model expects better results, so delivery clusters in time. That's why an ad can land the same night you talked about a topic, because the system already had reasons to try you tonight, and you happened to be scrolling when the budget was flowing.
预算也很重要。资金往往集中在模型预测效果更好的时间和地点，因此广告投放会在时间上集中。这就是为什么在你谈论某个话题的当晚，广告可能会出现，因为系统早已有理由在今晚尝试投放给你，而你恰好在预算流动时正在浏览。

When digital assistants were caught listening当数字助手被发现监听时

There are valid reasons why so many people believe that their phones listen to them. It goes beyond the phones themselves to the wider array of devices waiting for us to speak to them, like Amazon's Alexa smart speakers.
有充分的理由让这么多人相信他们的手机在监听他们。这不仅仅局限于手机本身，还包括更广泛的设备阵列，这些设备在等待我们对它们说话，比如亚马逊的 Alexa 智能音箱。

In 2019, an Apple contractor revealed that they were regularly listening to audio recordings, which sometimes included snippets of ongoing drug deals or people having sex, as part of a "grading process" to improve recognition for the Siri voice assistant. After public backlash, Apple apologized, paused the program and later made it opt-in. Apple agreed to a 2025 settlement, while denying wrongdoing and claiming Siri audio isn't used for ads.
2019 年，一名苹果承包商透露，他们定期监听音频录音，有时甚至包括正在进行的毒品交易或人们发生性关系的片段，这是为了改进 Siri 语音助手的识别能力而进行的“评分过程”。在公众强烈反对后，苹果道歉，暂停了该项目，并随后将其改为自愿参与。苹果同意在 2025 年达成和解，同时否认有不当行为，并声称 Siri 音频未被用于广告。

In the same year, a Belgian broadcaster revealed contractors could hear snippets of Google Assistant recordings, reporting showed Amazon teams  listened to some Alexa recordings and Facebook paid contractors to transcribe snippets of opt-in voice chats.
同年，一家比利时广播公司披露，承包商能听到 Google Assistant 录音的片段，报道还显示亚马逊团队监听了部分 Alexa 录音，而 Facebook 则支付承包商费用来转录自愿参与的语音聊天片段。

These incidents mostly involved quality reviews of virtual assistants and, in some cases, non-phone devices — not covert ad targeting by your phone's mic. But they were vivid and mishandled enough to make "always listening" still feel plausible today.
这些事件大多涉及虚拟助手的质量审查，有时还包括非手机设备，而不是通过手机麦克风进行秘密广告定位。但这些事件足够生动且处理不当，使得“始终在监听”的说法至今仍显得可信。

"People complain Alexa or Siri don't understand them, yet believe they can perfectly overhear conversations to target ads," says Egelman. "That's cognitive dissonance, not evidence."
“人们抱怨 Alexa 或 Siri 听不懂他们的话，却又相信这些设备能完美地偷听对话来投放针对性广告，”Egelman 说。“这是认知失调，而不是证据。”

Adding fuel to the fire, last year a leaked Cox Media Group pitch deck touted an "Active Listening" ad product that would target ads based on ambient audio. After the coverage, Google dropped CMG from its partner program. CMG later said the product had been discontinued, and it denied using device microphones in that way.
火上浇油的是，去年泄露的一份考克斯媒体集团的宣传资料中吹嘘了一款“主动监听”广告产品，该产品会根据环境音频来定向投放广告。在相关报道曝光后，谷歌将考克斯媒体集团从其合作伙伴计划中除名。考克斯媒体集团随后表示该产品已停用，并否认以这种方式使用设备麦克风。

Even so, it kept the listening narrative in headlines, despite platforms publicly disavowing it.
即便如此，尽管各大平台公开否认，这一监听话题依然频频登上头条。

Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

How advertising feeds on your data广告如何利用你的数据

Again, the reason we see those ads is simple: It's all about data.
再说一次，我们看到这些广告的原因很简单：这一切都与数据有关。

Data is one of the world's most valuable resources, up there with oil and water. Digital ads are a massive business — marketers spent nearly $1.1 trillion on advertising in 2024, with the biggest share going to digital.
数据是世界上最宝贵的资源之一，与石油和水并列。数字广告是一项巨大的业务——2024 年，营销人员在广告上的支出接近 1.1 万亿美元，其中最大的份额流向了数字广告。

Look at the leaders. Meta booked about $162 billion in ad revenue in 2024 — nearly all of its sales. Amazon made $15.7 billion from advertising in just the second quarter of 2025 (up 22% year over year). Walmart's retail media arm pulled in $4.4 billion in 2024 and is still growing fast.
看看这些领头羊。Meta 在 2024 年的广告收入约为 1620 亿美元——几乎占其全部销售额。亚马逊仅在 2025 年第二季度就从广告中赚取了 157 亿美元（同比增长 22%）。沃尔玛的零售媒体部门在 2024 年收入 44 亿美元，并且仍在快速增长。

All this money flows because data makes ads predictable: who to reach, when to show up and and whether it worked. The better the data, the better the predictions, the more the platform can charge. That's why the "ad machine" keeps investing in first-party data and AI. And to get that data, no one needs to eavesdrop through a microphone.
所有这些资金的流动都源于数据让广告变得可预测：接触到谁、何时出现以及是否有效。数据越好，预测越准确，平台就能收取更高的费用。这就是为什么“广告机器”不断投资于第一方数据和人工智能。而为了获取这些数据，根本不需要通过麦克风偷听。

"In reality, devices are tracking you in other ways," says the EFF's Galperin.
“实际上，设备正在以其他方式追踪你，”电子前沿基金会的加尔佩林说道。

We supply everything the ad machine (platforms, brokers, retailers and so on) needs, often without realizing it.
我们往往在不知不觉中为广告机器（平台、中介、零售商等）提供了所需的一切。

They work together to turn ordinary traces into timing. Your actions become labels; those labels group you with others who have similar profiles: an audience. That group yields a prediction: the ad you see. The app remembers what you do, the advertiser brings a list of people it already knows, a broker matches the dots and the pipes decide — in a blink — whose ad to show you.
它们协同工作，将普通的痕迹转化为时机。你的行为变成了标签；这些标签将你与其他具有相似特征的人归为一组：一个受众群体。这个群体产生了一个预测：你看到的广告。应用会记住你的行为，广告商带来一个它已经认识的人的列表，中介将这些点连接起来，管道系统在眨眼间决定——向你展示谁的广告。

That's why an ad can arrive with unnerving precision, as if it overheard you. It didn't. It read your week, and it had great timing.
这就是为什么一个广告能以令人不安的精准度出现，好像它偷听了你的谈话。它没有。它读取了你的一周，并且时机掌握得恰到好处。

Back to that Tourette's ad at the bar. Here's the boring path that likely put it there.
回到酒吧里那个关于抽动秽语综合征的广告。以下是它可能出现在那里的平凡路径。

In Instagram's split-second auction, my friend's in-app behavior (previous donations, affinity for mental health) and context (late, in LA, scrolling) met whatever the advertiser brought — probably a matched list of past donors or newsletter signups, plus a lookalike built from them. A data broker may have added fuel: prebuilt cause- or health-interest groups, or extra labels added to those donor lists, matched by hashed (scrambled) emails or phone numbers.
在 Instagram 的瞬时拍卖中，我朋友的应用程序内行为（之前的捐款、对心理健康的兴趣）以及情境（深夜，在洛杉矶，滑动浏览）与广告商提供的内容相匹配——可能是一份过去捐款者或新闻简报注册的匹配列表，再加上基于这些数据构建的类似人群。数据经纪人可能还添了一把火：预先构建的与事业或健康兴趣相关的群体，或者在这些捐款者列表上添加的额外标签，通过哈希（加密）的电子邮件或电话号码进行匹配。

If we were on the same Wi-Fi or had been in the same places that week, co-location/household signals could have nudged both of us into range. The model picked the moment.
如果我们使用同一个 Wi-Fi，或者那周去过相同的地方，共同位置/家庭信号可能会将我们俩都纳入范围。模型选择了那个时刻。

Meta even surfaces some of this in-app. Tap " Why am I seeing this ad?" and you'll often see a plain-English reason tied to your activity or the advertiser's audience.
Meta 甚至在应用内展示了一些相关信息。点击“为什么我会看到这个广告？”，你通常会看到一个用通俗英语解释的原因，与你的活动或广告商的目标受众有关。

When asked for comment, Meta pointed CNET to an explainer in its Privacy Center: "We only use your microphone if you've given us permission and are actively using a feature that requires the microphone." The company also noted its page on what data it uses for ads and the ad controls available to users.
当被要求置评时，Meta 向 CNET 指出其隐私中心的一篇解释文章：“只有在你授权并主动使用需要麦克风的功能时，我们才会使用你的麦克风。”该公司还提到其页面上关于用于广告的数据以及用户可用的广告控制选项。

Your mind plays tricks on you你的思维在捉弄你

But the uncanniness of it all isn't just what's in your phone. It's what's in your head as well.
但这一切的诡异之处不仅仅在于你的手机里，也在于你的脑海中。

Once a topic is on your mind, you start spotting it everywhere — it's known as the frequency illusion, sometimes referred to as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Linguist Arnold Zwicky coined the term. Once you notice something new, you start seeing it everywhere.
一旦某个话题萦绕在你的脑海中，你就会开始在各处发现它——这被称为频率错觉，有时也被称为巴德-迈因霍夫现象。语言学家阿诺德·茨维基创造了这个术语。一旦你注意到某个新事物，你就会开始在各处看到它。

In 2022, I purchased a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 560SL. A few weeks later, I started noticing the car on every block — or at least it felt that way. Did the city of Los Angeles buy a fleet of my car overnight? No. What's more likely is that I joined a club and started seeing the members.
2022 年，我买了一辆 1986 年的 Mercedes-Benz 560SL。几周后，我开始在每个街区都注意到这款车——至少感觉上是这样。难道洛杉矶市一夜之间买了一批和我一样的车吗？不是。更有可能的是，我加入了一个俱乐部，然后开始注意到其他成员。

After this recognition, confirmation bias takes over. You remember the eerie hit — the ad that lands right after the conversation — but you discard the thousands of misses before that. The story writes itself: We said it and then you saw it. Therefore, the phone must have listened.
在这种认知之后，确认偏见接管了一切。你会记得那种诡异的巧合——在对话后立刻出现的广告——但你会忽略之前成千上万次的无关情况。故事就这样自己写成了：我们说了，然后你就看到了。因此，手机肯定偷听了。

"What is happening is targeted advertising — and some of it is cognitive biases," says Egelman, the privacy researcher. "Your friend probably doesn't make note of all of the irrelevant ads he sees."
“这是定向广告在起作用——其中还包括一些认知偏差，”隐私研究员埃格尔曼说。“你的朋友可能不会注意到他看到的所有无关广告。”

We all miss the things we're not expecting to encounter. Research into inattentional blindness (the "gorilla" strolling through a basketball drill) shows how attention edits reality. Most of the advertisements stream by, but the one aligned with what's top of mind pops out as if it were placed just for you.
我们都会错过那些我们不期待遇到的事物。关于无意视盲（比如篮球训练中走过的“大猩猩”）的研究表明，注意力会编辑现实。大多数广告一闪而过，但那些与你当下最关注的事情相关的广告会突然跳出来，好像是专门为你放置的。

You scrolled past the advertisements for an irrelevant airline credit card and Japanese selvedge denim, but you noticed the trip to Cancun, because well, you just talked about going to Cancun to your best friend.
你滚动浏览了无关的航空信用卡和日本 selvedge 牛仔布广告，但你注意到了去坎昆的旅行广告，因为，嗯，你刚刚和最好的朋友聊过要去坎昆。

Add two mental shortcuts: availability heuristic (vivid examples feel more common) and illusory correlation (when two things happen together, we assume they're linked). Then confirmation bias seals it.
加上两个心理捷径：可得性启发式（生动的例子让人觉得更常见）和虚假相关性（当两件事同时发生时，我们假设它们有关联）。然后确认偏见就锁定了这种想法。

Once you name those biases, the spell weakens. And you see how it really works. I started collecting other coincidences.
一旦你指出了这些偏见，魔咒就会减弱。你就会明白它真正的运作方式。我开始收集其他巧合。

My friend kept getting fish tank ads after talking to her personal trainer about fish tanks. They have each other's contacts saved in their phones and my friend is already a pet owner, so it tracks.
我的朋友在和她的私人教练聊完鱼缸后，不断收到鱼缸广告。她们手机里存了对方的联系方式，而且我的朋友已经养了宠物，所以这似乎说得通。

My mom swears she received knee brace ads seconds after talking to her friend about knee pain. She had knee surgery two years ago, and she probably googled something about knee pain recently, which she has no recollection of, obviously.
我妈妈发誓说，她在和朋友聊膝盖疼痛后几秒钟就收到了膝盖支具的广告。她两年前做过膝盖手术，而且她可能最近在网上搜索过关于膝盖疼痛的内容，当然她自己完全不记得了。

I received an advertisement for very specific baby-blue Rimowa carry-on luggage after talking about it to a friend. I've owned Rimowa luggage before, and not only that, but I'm visiting Germany in the fall, so it makes sense I would receive a travel ad of some sort.
我在和朋友聊起一款非常特别的宝宝蓝 Rimowa 手提行李箱后，收到了相关的广告。我之前就拥有过 Rimowa 行李箱，而且今年秋天我还要去德国，所以收到某种旅行广告也是合情合理的。

No microphones required. Just data.
不需要麦克风，只需要数据。

Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

Hot mics and 'Hey Siri'热麦克风和“Hey Siri”

One of the clearest reality checks came from a Northeastern University team that tested about 9,100 Android apps back in 2018 and watched what actually left the phone. It found no evidence of apps secretly recording and shipping audio to ad networks. When data did leak, the surprises were different: a handful of screen recordings and image or video uploads to third parties, and voice assistants that sent text transcripts, not raw audio, for processing.
其中一个最清晰的现实检验来自东北大学的一个团队，他们在 2018 年测试了大约 9100 个 Android 应用，并观察了手机实际传输的数据。他们没有发现任何证据表明应用会秘密录音并将音频发送到广告网络。当数据确实泄露时，令人惊讶的是其他方面：少数屏幕录像和图片或视频被上传到第三方，以及语音助手发送的是文本转录而非原始音频进行处理。

Last month, I caught up with the researcher who led that study.
上个月，我联系到了领导那项研究的研究员。

"The thing we didn't expect was screen recording — it was like someone looking over your shoulder, and that data went to a third-party's servers, not the app you were using," says David Choffnes, a professor of computer science at Northeastern and executive director of the university's Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute.
“我们没有预料到的是屏幕录制——这就像有人在你背后偷看，而这些数据被发送到了第三方的服务器，而不是你正在使用的应用程序，”东北大学计算机科学教授兼该校网络安全与隐私研究所执行主任大卫·乔夫尼斯说道。

CNET did some informal testing of its own back in 2019. There was no indication that Facebook was listening in on conversations as a trigger for serving ads.
CNET 在 2019 年进行了一些非正式的测试。没有迹象表明 Facebook 会通过监听对话来触发广告投放。

A true hot mic would leave fingerprints. If something were siphoning audio 24/7, you'd notice it in your bill, your battery widget and your status bar long before a conspiracy TikTok video "explained" it.
一个真正的热麦克风会留下痕迹。如果有东西 24 小时不间断地窃取音频，你早在某个阴谋论 TikTok 视频“解释”之前，就会在账单、电池小部件和状态栏中注意到异常。

"That can't be happening. … Your phone would be constantly streaming audio," says Egelman. "It would show up on your bill, and your battery would not last very long."
“这是不可能的……你的手机不可能一直在传输音频，”Egelman 说。“这会在你的账单上显示出来，而且你的电池也撑不了多久。”

Smart speakers are also to blame for the conspiracy theory. Yes, they are "always listening," but only for a wake word. Until that match fires, nothing is supposed to leave the house. Amazon says Echo devices detect the wake word locally and don't store or send audio to the cloud unless activation occurs. The company also says that voice history can be reviewed/deleted and interactions can inform relevance for ads with Alexa, although you can opt-out.
智能音箱也是阴谋论的罪魁祸首。是的，它们确实“一直在监听”，但仅仅是为了识别唤醒词。在匹配到唤醒词之前，任何内容都不应该离开设备。亚马逊表示，Echo 设备会在本地检测唤醒词，除非设备被激活，否则不会存储或将音频发送到云端。该公司还表示，用户可以查看或删除语音历史记录，并且与 Alexa 的互动可能会影响广告的相关性，不过用户可以选择退出。

Your phone also keeps a tiny listener running, but it's not what you think. A small, on-device model sits in standby and listens only for the wake words. On the iPhone, Apple's own research describes it as a lightweight recognizer that runs all the time and wakes the full system only when it hears "Hey Siri."
你的手机也运行着一个小型监听程序，但并非你想象的那样。一个小型的设备端模型处于待机状态，仅监听唤醒词。在 iPhone 上，苹果自己的研究将其描述为一个轻量级的识别器，始终运行，只有在听到“Hey Siri”时才会唤醒整个系统。

Android devices do the same with "Hey Google." Google explains that Assistant waits  in standby, processing a few seconds of audio locally to detect the trigger. If no activation is detected, nothing is sent or saved. Only after activation does the device record your request and send it for fulfillment (and by default, those audio recordings aren't even saved to your account). According to Google, its consumer devices don't use ambient sound for ad personalization. Many devices use a low-power digital signal processor for this precisely so it won't drain your battery or beam ambient chatter anywhere.
安卓设备在使用“Hey Google”时也是如此。谷歌解释说，Assistant 会在待机状态下本地处理几秒钟的音频以检测触发词。如果未检测到激活，则不会发送或保存任何内容。只有在激活后，设备才会记录您的请求并发送以完成处理（默认情况下，这些音频记录甚至不会保存到您的账户中）。根据谷歌的说法，其消费设备不会使用环境声音来进行广告个性化。许多设备使用低功耗数字信号处理器来实现这一功能，正是为了避免耗尽电池或将环境对话传输到任何地方。

Apple says it has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles or make it available for advertising. Google's Assistant page spells out the same architectural boundary: standby doesn't ship your audio; activation is explicit, reviewable and controllable in settings. Wake-word engines exist to launch a helper, not to feed an ad slot.
苹果表示，它从未使用 Siri 数据来构建营销档案或将其用于广告。谷歌的 Assistant 页面也明确说明了同样的架构界限：待机状态下不会传输您的音频；激活是明确的、可审查的，并且可以在设置中控制。唤醒词引擎的存在是为了启动助手，而不是为了填充广告位。

Yes, false triggers and misfires happen. The system can mishear the wake words and briefly record before you cancel. But that's a quality-of-assistant problem, not an ad-targeting pipeline. You can delete those interactions and even tighten sensitivities.
是的，误触发和失误确实会发生。系统可能会误听唤醒词，并在你取消之前短暂录音。但这是一个助手质量问题，而不是广告定位渠道。你可以删除这些交互记录，甚至可以调整灵敏度设置。

Choffnes also co-authored a 2020 test that pumped 134 hours of TV audio at Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft speakers while watching the light rings and network traffic. They saw no 24/7 recording — just occasional false wakes, usually a few seconds, with a few longer outliers. When a device did wake, it typically sent that short clip to the company's cloud servers for processing.
Choffnes 还共同撰写了一项 2020 年的测试，向 Amazon、Google、Apple 和 Microsoft 的音箱播放了 134 小时的电视音频，同时观察指示灯环和网络流量。他们没有发现全天候录音的情况——只是偶尔会出现误唤醒，通常持续几秒钟，少数情况下会稍长一些。当设备被唤醒时，它通常会将短暂的音频片段发送到公司的云服务器进行处理。

In other words, "sent to the cloud" means the speaker thought it heard the wake word and uploaded a brief recording so the assistant could interpret it. That confirms short clips can exist on vendor servers (and, on some platforms, be reviewed or deleted), but it's not a continuous microphone or an ad-targeting pipeline.
换句话说，“发送到云端”意味着音箱认为它听到了唤醒词，并上传了一段短暂的录音，以便助手能够进行解读。这证实了短音频片段可能存在于供应商的服务器上（在某些平台上可以被查看或删除），但这并不是一个持续的麦克风或广告定位渠道。

"This was mostly a good-news story: we found no evidence of constant recording — just short, triggered clips when a device thought it heard the wake word," says Choffnes. "Bottom line: For the most part, most consumers shouldn't be concerned about pervasive listening."
“总的来说，这是一个好消息：我们没有发现持续录音的证据——只有在设备认为听到了唤醒词时才会触发短暂的片段，”Choffnes 说。“底线是：大多数情况下，大多数消费者不必担心普遍的监听。”

The part that sticks is the mood that smart speakers create. Once you live with a device that can wake on a word, every well-timed ad on your phone feels like the same mechanism at work.
令人印象深刻的是智能音箱所营造的情感氛围。一旦你开始与一个可以通过语音唤醒的设备共同生活，每次手机上出现的精准广告都会让人感觉是同样的机制在起作用。

From cookies to AI从 cookies 到 AI

Getty Image/ Zooey Liao/ CNET

How did we get here, to this place where advertisements work so incredibly well that we swear it could only happen by our phones secretly listening to us?
我们是如何走到这一步的？广告的效果如此惊人地好，以至于我们发誓这只能是因为我们的手机在偷偷监听我们。

Before the models we have now, there were cookies. In the early days of the internet, web pages were like goldfish — no memory between clicks. So cookies showed up as a convenience feature to keep your shopping cart intact, remember your logins and save your language preference. First-party cookies did that housekeeping just fine.
在我们拥有现在的模型之前，有一种叫做 cookies 的东西。在互联网的早期，网页就像金鱼一样——点击之间没有记忆。因此，cookies 作为一种便利功能出现，用来保持购物车的内容，记住你的登录信息以及保存你的语言偏好。第一方 cookies 很好地完成了这些管理工作。

Then came the side doors. Ad networks and analytics firms set third-party cookies and tiny "pixels" on lots of sites, which let them recognize the same browser across the web. That's when the web started to feel like a hall of mirrors. You looked at a toaster once, and the toaster followed you for a week.
接着出现了侧门。广告网络和分析公司在大批网站上设置了第三方 cookie 和微小的“像素”，这让它们能够在网络上识别同一个浏览器。那时，网络开始感觉像是一个镜子迷宫。你只看了一次烤面包机，结果这个烤面包机就跟了你一个星期。

Mobile devices then complicated the trick. Apps don't use browser cookies, so platforms leaned on mobile ad IDs, and more importantly, their own logged-in universes. Add the rise of retail media — ads tied to actual receipts — and you get precise targeting without passing identities around.
移动设备则让这个伎俩变得更加复杂。应用程序不使用浏览器 cookie，因此平台开始依赖移动广告 ID，更重要的是，它们依赖自己的登录用户体系。再加上零售媒体的兴起——广告与实际收据挂钩——你会得到精准的定位，而无需传递身份信息。

The more the industry traded IDs for inference — scores, cohorts, household context — the more ads arrived with uncanny timing and fewer obvious breadcrumbs. To you, that feels like eavesdropping. To the system, it's just the next step after cookies: less about who you are, more about what the math thinks you'll do next.
行业越是倾向于用推断——分数、群体、家庭背景——来替代身份标识，广告就越能在诡异的时间点出现，而且留下的明显痕迹也越少。对你来说，这感觉像是被偷听。而对系统来说，这只是继 cookie 之后的下一步：不再关注你是谁，而是更多地关注数学模型预测你接下来会做什么。

Now add the AI piece.
现在再加上人工智能这一部分。

Platforms aren't just placing ads, they're making them. Meta's Advantage Plus suite includes generative AI tools for ad creative. Google's Performance Max can generate headlines, descriptions, and images and video variants. Amazon Ads ships image and video generators so a product photo turns into lifestyle scenes in minutes.
平台不仅仅是投放广告，它们还在制作广告。Meta 的 Advantage Plus 套件包括用于广告创意的生成式 AI 工具。Google 的 Performance Max 可以生成标题、描述以及图像和视频变体。Amazon Ads 提供图像和视频生成器，让产品照片在几分钟内变成生活场景。

Under the hood, measurement keeps drifting from identity to intent. More math runs on-platform or on-device (think Apple's privacy-preserving attribution), so less raw data sloshes around. What you feel is the same: a score appears at decision time —  likelihood to donate tonight: 0.62 — and the system spends accordingly.
在幕后，衡量标准不断从身份转向意图。更多的数学计算在平台上或设备上运行（想想苹果的隐私保护归因），因此流动的原始数据越来越少。你感受到的是一样的：决策时会出现一个分数——今晚捐款的可能性：0.62——系统会根据这个分数进行相应的投入。

AI will keep tightening the timing and tailoring the message, so ads will feel even more like they "heard" you. They didn't. They modeled you.
人工智能会不断优化时机和定制信息，因此广告会让人感觉更像是“听到了”你的想法。但实际上，它们并没有。它们只是对你进行了建模。

Is this all something to truly be scared of? 这一切真的值得害怕吗？

I'm not worried about my phone listening to me, but there is something that disturbs me. It's the shadow I leave behind on the internet — a "ghost profile" stitched together from my clicks, searches, locations and card swipes.
我并不担心我的手机监听我，但有一件事确实让我不安。那就是我在互联网上留下的影子——一个由我的点击、搜索、位置和刷卡记录拼凑而成的“幽灵档案”。

Data brokers are the ones who make that ghost useful. That's how the shadow becomes actionable — brokers say who, identity tools say which account and the platform says now.
数据中介是让这个“幽灵”变得有用的关键。这就是影子变得可操作的方式——中介公司告诉你“谁”，身份工具告诉你“哪个账户”，平台则告诉你“现在”。

Sensitive location data is the first tripwire. Regulators have warned that brokered phone location trails can reveal visits to reproductive health clinics, houses of worship, shelters and recovery centers. The Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against data broker Kochava lays that out in plain terms. The agency says selling this data exposes people to stigma, stalking, discrimination and even physical harm.
敏感的位置数据是第一个警报触发点。监管机构警告说，通过中介交易的手机位置轨迹可能会暴露人们前往生殖健康诊所、宗教场所、庇护所和康复中心的记录。联邦贸易委员会对数据中介公司 Kochava 的诉讼清楚地说明了这一点。该机构表示，出售这些数据会使人们面临污名、跟踪、歧视甚至人身伤害的风险。

Then come the workarounds. When agencies can't easily get data with a warrant, some have bought it instead. Records obtained by the ACLU show Department of Homeland Security components (including CBP and ICE) purchasing access to phone location records after the Supreme Court's Carpenter ruling made warrantless cell-site tracking tougher.
然后是变通方法。当机构无法轻易通过搜查令获取数据时，一些机构选择购买数据。美国公民自由联盟（ACLU）获取的记录显示，国土安全部的一些部门（包括海关与边境保护局和移民与海关执法局）在最高法院的 Carpenter 裁决使得无搜查令的手机基站追踪变得更加困难后，购买了手机位置记录的访问权限。

Brokers' "anonymized" files can also be used to out or coerce individuals. In 2021, a senior Catholic official resigned after reporters obtained location-based app data — purchased from a broker and linked to a device that frequented gay bars and used Grindr — illustrating how readily "anonymous" trails can be tied back to a person.
经纪人的“匿名”文件还可能被用来揭露或胁迫个人。2021 年，一名高级天主教官员在记者获取基于位置的应用程序数据后辞职——这些数据是从经纪人处购买的，并与一台频繁出入同性恋酒吧并使用 Grindr 的设备相关联——这表明“匿名”痕迹很容易被追溯到具体个人。

And the fallout isn't limited to embarrassment. Profiles that time an ad can also shape prices and eligibility. US prosecutors forced Meta to overhaul its housing-ad delivery system after alleging the algorithmic tools could produce unlawful demographic skews. Regulators have flagged similar risks in employment and credit contexts.
这种影响不仅仅局限于尴尬。广告投放时间的配置文件还可能影响价格和资格。美国检察官指控 Meta 的算法工具可能导致非法的 demographic 偏差后，迫使 Meta 对其住房广告投放系统进行彻底改革。监管机构在就业和信贷领域也指出了类似的风险。

And location brokers have marketed feeds and services to government and military customers, underscoring how easily ad tech exhaust crosses into surveillance use cases. Reporting has also documented the US military buying app location data from brokers like Babel Street and X-Mode for "counter-terrorism" purposes.
位置数据经纪人向政府和军事客户推销数据流和服务，这凸显了广告技术数据如何轻易地被用于监控用途。报道还记录了美国军方从 Babel Street 和 X-Mode 等经纪人处购买应用位置数据，用于“反恐”目的。

Once the shadow profile exists, it's portable. That's the danger beyond ads.
一旦影子档案存在，它就是可 перенос 的。这就是广告之外的危险。

==How to protect yourself 如何保护自己==

==What can we do about all of this?==
==我们能对此做些什么呢？==

==Start by cutting down the data you give off each day. In your web browser, run a tracker blocker like uBlock Origin alongside a behavior-based add-on such as EFF's Privacy Badger. "I recommend using both together. I use them all the time," says Galperin.==
==首先，减少你每天提供的数据。在你的网络浏览器中，使用像 uBlock Origin 这样的追踪器拦截工具，同时搭配像 EFF 的 Privacy Badger 这样的基于行为的插件。Galperin 说：“我建议两者一起使用。我一直都在用它们。”==

==On your phone, do a quick permission audit every few months: set Location to "While Using the App" (and Approximate when you can), revoke mic/camera for anything that doesn't need it and delete the apps you never open. iPhone users can skim Settings > Privacy & Security > App Privacy Report to spot noisy apps, and Android's Privacy Dashboard shows timestamped mic/camera/location access.==
==在你的手机上，每隔几个月进行一次快速的权限审查：将位置权限设置为“使用应用时”（如果可以，选择“大概位置”），撤销不需要麦克风/相机权限的应用，并删除你从不打开的应用。iPhone 用户可以浏览“设置 > 隐私与安全 > 应用隐私报告”来发现占用资源的应用程序，而 Android 的隐私仪表板会显示带有时间戳的麦克风/相机/位置访问记录。==

==You won't vanish, but you'll close some doors. As Galperin likes to put it, the easiest win is simple: turn off location services unless you truly need them.==
==你不会消失，但你会关上一些门。正如加尔佩林喜欢说的那样，最简单的胜利就是：除非你真的需要，否则关闭定位服务。==

==Another effective move is subtraction. Fewer apps means fewer places collecting data about you. When something asks for access, give it the minimum it needs. Skip contact uploads and "Find Friends," avoid signing in with the same identity everywhere, and use email aliases for newsletters and loyalty signups so profiles don't fuse by default.==
==另一个有效的措施是减少使用。安装的应用程序越少，收集你数据的途径就越少。当某个应用请求访问权限时，只给予它所需的最小权限。跳过联系人上传和“查找朋友”功能，避免在所有地方使用相同的身份登录，并为订阅新闻简讯和忠诚计划使用电子邮件别名，这样个人资料就不会默认合并。==

=="Only install and use apps that you really need," says Northeastern's Choffnes. "When they're asking for permissions to access data or asking you to enter data, try to enter as little as you can get away with."==
==“只安装和使用你真正需要的应用程序，”东北大学的 Choffnes 说。“当它们请求访问数据的权限或要求你输入数据时，尽量输入尽可能少的信息。”==

In some states, you can file data-subject access requests to see what companies hold about you and who they share it with. On Instagram, for example, you can go to your profile > three-dash menu > Accounts Center > Your information and permissions and export all the information Instagram has on you, including content and information you've shared and activity and info Instagram collects.
在一些州，你可以提交数据主体访问请求，以查看公司持有关于你的哪些数据以及他们与谁共享这些数据。例如，在 Instagram 上，你可以前往你的个人资料 > 三横线菜单 > 账户中心 > 你的信息和权限，然后导出 Instagram 拥有的关于你的所有信息，包括你分享的内容和信息，以及 Instagram 收集的活动和信息。

When I downloaded my data, I was able to see my activity that Meta tracked outside of its apps, including online purchases, information I've submitted to advertisers (included my address), categories associated with my activity (engaged shopper, household income, travel plans) and a list of advertisers using my activity or information to show me ads.
当我下载了我的数据后，我能够看到 Meta 在其应用之外追踪的我的活动，包括在线购物、我提交给广告商的信息（包括我的地址）、与我的活动相关的类别（活跃购物者、家庭收入、旅行计划）以及使用我的活动或信息向我展示广告的广告商列表。

You can also pull some data back. If doing it yourself isn't realistic, data-deletion services (such as Easy Opt Out and Optery) will file broker opt-outs on your behalf. They're imperfect and they're not one-and-done — brokers replenish constantly — which is why Galperin calls it a "constant cat-and-mouse game." Do it anyway, because trimming the broker trail reduces how precisely systems can time you.
你也可以收回一些数据。如果自己操作不现实，可以使用数据删除服务（例如 Easy Opt Out 和 Optery），它们会代表你向数据经纪人提交退出申请。这些服务并不完美，也不是一劳永逸的——数据经纪人会不断补充数据——这就是为什么 Galperin 称之为“持续的猫捉老鼠游戏”。尽管如此，还是去做吧，因为减少数据经纪人的踪迹可以降低系统对你的精准定位能力。

Beyond that it becomes a public policy matter.
除此之外，这就变成了一个公共政策问题。

"The idea that this is an individual's responsibility is ridiculous. It's highly technical and adversarial," says Christo Wilson, professor and founding member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern, who also worked on the 2018 study. "I'm an expert and I'm still exposed. No individual can win against an ecosystem built to surveil."
“认为这是个人责任的想法是荒谬的。这非常技术化且充满对抗性，”东北大学网络安全与隐私研究所的教授兼创始成员克里斯托·威尔逊（Christo Wilson）说道，他也参与了 2018 年的研究。“我是个专家，但我仍然会暴露。没有任何个人能对抗一个专为监视而构建的生态系统。”

The myth survives because it flatters us这个谣言之所以流传，是因为它迎合了我们的自尊

In the past few months, I've had the same exchange with friends, cousins, Uber drivers, a woman at a kid's birthday party, a drunk guy on a bar patio who swore his phone had betrayed him. They lean in and tell me about the ad that materialized right after a conversation, the one so on the nose it felt like a dare.
在过去的几个月里，我和朋友、表亲、优步司机、一个孩子生日派对上的女士、一个在酒吧露台上醉醺醺的家伙有过同样的对话，他们发誓他们的手机背叛了他们。他们凑近我，告诉我关于在一次对话后立即出现的广告，那种广告精准得像是挑衅。

"Your phone isn't listening to you," I say. "It's timing." I tell them it's data and context and a system that's really good at guessing.
“你的手机并没有在偷听你，”我说。“这是时机问题。”我告诉他们这是数据和上下文，以及一个非常擅长猜测的系统。

"I don't believe that," they say, almost every time.
“我不相信，”他们几乎每次都这么说。

I get it. A secret microphone is a better story than a spreadsheet with great aim. A villain you can point to beats a vast spider web you can't see.
我明白。相比于一个精准的电子表格，秘密麦克风的故事听起来更有趣。有一个明确的恶棍比一个看不见的巨大蜘蛛网更容易让人接受。

Here's a metaphor to try out: Think of the city as a weather radar. Every tap, swipe and purchase you make is a little blip. Most evaporate. Some cluster. When the storm cells line up, the system flashes an alert. That flash is the ad. It didn't hear thunder — it saw the pattern and predicted it.
这里有一个比喻可以试试：把城市想象成一个天气雷达。你每一次点击、滑动和购买都是一个小小的信号点。大多数信号会消失。有些会聚集在一起。当风暴单元排列成形时，系统就会发出警报。这个警报就是广告。它并没有听到雷声——它看到了模式并预测了结果。

On my phone, meanwhile, my feed is a conveyor: little rectangles, arguments and declarations about what I might do if nudged just right. I tap one, save another and linger on a third without meaning to. It's nothing. It's everything. It's a fresh addition to the profile that's already following me around.
与此同时，在我的手机上，我的动态就像一条传送带：一个个小矩形，争论和声明，关于如果被恰到好处地推动我可能会做什么。我点击一个，保存另一个，无意中在第三个上停留了一下。这没什么。但又意味着一切。这是我已经被跟踪的个人档案中的一个新鲜补充。

I think this myth survives because it flatters us. It says we're interesting enough to spy on, significant enough to bother. But the truth is plainer and, somehow, more intimate: We are legible. Not to a person with headphones in a van, but to a system that grades our likelihoods and gets paid when it's right.
我认为这个神话之所以存在，是因为它让我们感到荣幸。它说我们足够有趣，值得被监视，足够重要，值得被关注。但真相更简单，却又某种程度上更私密：我们是可读的。不是对一个戴着耳机的货车里的人，而是对一个评估我们可能性并在预测正确时获得报酬的系统。

If you want a monster, it's not a microphone. It's the quiet arithmetic that reads your week, guesses your mood and launches a message at the exact second it thinks you're most likely to swallow it.
如果你想找一个怪物，那不是麦克风。而是那种默默计算你一周的行为，猜测你的情绪，并在它认为你最有可能接受的精确时刻推送消息的算法。

I wish the explanation landed cleaner at the bar, at the party, on the sidewalk. People want to believe in the listening because it puts the cause in the room with them. The ad-tech model is almost ethereal, which makes it hard to place, and seemingly impossible to escape.
我希望这个解释能在酒吧、派对或人行道上更清晰地传达。人们愿意相信设备在监听，因为这样就把原因归结于他们身边的东西。广告技术的模式几乎是虚无缥缈的，这让它难以捉摸，也似乎无法逃避。

But we're not haunted. We're forecast.
但我们并不是被鬼魂缠身。我们是被预测的。

We're predictable.我们是可预测的。

---

Visual Designer | Zooey Liao
视觉设计师 | Zooey Liao

Art Director | Jeffrey Hazelwood
艺术总监 | Jeffrey Hazelwood

Creative Director | Viva Tung
创意总监 | Viva Tung

Video Host | JD Christison
视频主持人 | JD Christison

Video Editor | Jon Gomez
视频编辑 | Jon Gomez

Project Manager | Danielle Ramirez
项目经理 | Danielle Ramirez

Editors | Corinne Reichert
编辑 | Corinne Reichert

Director of Content | Jonathan Skillings
内容总监 | Jonathan Skillings