This was happening to me until I removed Facebook and Facebook Messenger from my phone. I believe these apps listen to conversations even when you aren’t using them. I am not alone in believing this.
I have evidence of same and it may not be just FB and Messanger
Last week a co-worker engaged me in a discussion concerning her father-in-laws diagnosis of prostate cancer. This lasted about 20 or 30 minutes. I had my cell phone on me. I do not have FB or Messanger.
I do not deal with cancer cases at work. I did not google any information on prostate cancer. I did not send any mails pertaining to prostate cancer or any other form of cancer.
Two days later I start getting ads and suggestions for prostate cancer treatment options. How unlikely should that be?
I am trying to reproduce the effect by talking about other rare disease conditions with my phone switched on.
If the bugger is spying on me I'd like to know.
Say that the average within-microphone-range presence of each user is five hours per day. Probably a huge underestimate.
Do you really think that Facebook would devote enough server time to parse five billion hours of mumbling audio each and every day? That's several times longer than the total viewing of YouTube each day.
Its likely a passive listening for keywords kind of thing.