Tailored ads: How much information is TOO much information?

If you use Facebook or Instagram regularly, you’ve probably had the common experience of being served up an ad that is promoting something you just looked up last week. Or relates to something you just bought yesterday. Or, even weirder, something you just had a conversation about with a friend that morning.

In some instances, it’s not weird at all. At this point, retargeting is common enough knowledge to the average consumer, so most people probably expect to see ads for five kinds of tennis shoes after they search for one specific pair on Amazon.

What is still disarming is what these companies know when it comes to spending behavior and listening in to conversations. I recently bought Allegra and soon after was served up an ad for Claritin. I purchased the medicine in a typical drug store with my debit card and couldn’t help but be a little disturbed at how my purchase became the knowledge of a different company. According to a story on CBS News, Google is privy to 70% of transactions in the US made by debit or credit cards. Does the retailer share this info with Google? Do credit card companies make transaction information accessible?

Even weirder are the times that I have a conversation and a product becomes a topic. Then later (sometimes hours, sometimes a couple of days) an ad will show up for that exact product. No Google search, no browsing on the web at all—just a simple in-person conversation.

Are our devices listening to us? And sending off the information for use by companies to sell products?

In that same CBS article, Google and Facebook (who also owns Instagram) both deny using device microphones to capture data. But another article on Narcity seems to point to one possible explanation: software embedded in apps that have access to your microphone. I know that I definitely have clicked “Allow Access” for certain apps to use the microphone on my phone. Evidently, some software companies have found a way to gather the data collected from bits of audio and send that information off. It’s not illegal, and up to this point, there hasn’t been much pushback from the general public on this being a breach of privacy.

As we know from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, there is a line to be crossed when it comes to the use of our information. Clearly, when Facebook provided users’ information to the company, they breached the public’s trust. However, it was the end use that shook most of America: the presidential campaign.

So, my question is simply this: At what point will the public no longer feel comfortable with companies gathering information on us to tailor ads? Right now, it’s fun to see an ad for shoes that we end up buying, but will there come a day where some line is crossed as far as what information these companies have on us and how it was attained?