I propose a thought experiment. Compose a near-random phrase offline, then repeat it out loud a few times over a day or two. Does it start appearing in ads?

We read of people complaining that their devices or the cloud is monitoring them because they notice that ads and search results suddenly start appearing for things they’ve said or done recently.

To test this would require coming up with something nearly completely random that’s unrelated to a person’s regular behaviours, thoughts, or lifestyle, then saying out loud that thing a few times throughout the day or evening, to see if it starts appearing online.

For example, if I came …

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