Interesting post from Daniel SUCIU about a head hunter reaching out to him, and the #LinkedIn algorithm suddenly surfacing more posts from that person. In the comments, someone suggested Alexa might be listening... I'm skeptical of the notion that home assistants are perpetually eavesdropping on our conversations. Someone else thought it could be pure randomness... The idea of sheer coincidence as an explanation doesn't convince me either. I think there's a more straightforward explanation: it is quite possible that if person "A" view person "B" profile, it might influence the LI algorithm, leading it to display person "A" content more prominently to person "B" for a short while, to see if there will be engagement. The same misconception applies to #Facebook, where tales of the platform listening to our private discussions abound. An anecdote like discussing travel plans to Timbuktu at a restaurant, only to later find your feed flooded with related advertisements, fuels these conspiracy theories. This would be too complex and costly... FB doesn't even have to do that! If any of those conditions apply, FB will know: • you've left geolocalization active all the time in the FB app; • you've left geolocalization active in any other app, or any other app is set to "only when using the app" and that app is active, FB will likely know (through data shared with FB, which is very likely); • if you've visited any website, FB will know via the FB pixel, simply because of its ubiquity on the web. Through geolocation of both persons, FB deduce that a long restaurant visit likely involved meaningful conversation. If your friend has been searching for information on Timbuktu, it's plausible this topic might interest you too, based on shared location and potential topic overlap, not because it's actively listening to your conversations. Be it the LinkedIn, Facebook or any other, we'll never know, because those algorithms are black boxes... #NoConsentNoTracking #martech #digitalmarketing #dataprivacy