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I still don’t think companies serve you ads based on spying through your microphone
(simonwillison.net)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Can there really be an objective measurement? You should think first thing data harvesters would implement is a sort of cloak, to erase any traces of what's going on. Think Dieselgate, but more sophisticated. E.g. phone detects it's being tested the way you described, or is in the hands of a state attorney or whatever, the recording/ forwarding/ prcoessing of data stops.
That's only really feasible for phones they knowingly send to regulators. The phone would have no practical way of knowing that I'm having staged conversations around it and keeping track of the ads I see.
But even if you're right, that doesn't change the fact that a lack of objective measurement means all these stories are unreliable.