I don’t know why people keep thinking that phones are listening in on every conversation just so they can advertise ‘Volvo’ at you.

• they don’t need to - we give them loads of data voluntarily based on location data, what we search for, things we buy, things we ‘like’ on social media…

• they’d be stung for huge fines of caught doing it.

• it’d take enormous storage and processing power to manage all that data.

• Just think about how many things you talk about every day that you’ve never then seen an advert for (confirmation bias)

• my Google Home can’t understand me when I’m actually talking directly at it asking it a question, so the idea it can seripticiously pick out words while listening through my pocket is implausible.

Give me a way to physically shut off the microphone (like a camera shield on business laptops), then we will talk.

Strange topics had popped up in my Google feed after l spoke to someone about something I’ve never googled before

If you disable the microphone, you would also need to disable the vibrator, speaker, and accelerometer, all of which can be used as makeshift microphones.