Apple says Siri doesn’t send your conversations to advertisers.

Here’s the section specifically responding to the rumors:

Apple has never used Siri data to create marketing profiles, never disclosed it for advertising purposes, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We’re constantly developing technology to make Siri more private, and we’ll continue to do so.

After THe’s the Guardian’s In a 2019 report, Apple apologized and changed its policy, setting a preference not to retain audio recordings of Siri interactions and stating that for users who consented to sharing their recordings, those recordings would not be shared with third-party contractors.

However, according to a report on the settlement, some of the plaintiffs in previous lawsuits like this one, from 2021, “after mentioning brand names like ‘Olive Garden,’ ‘Eastern Bats,’ ‘Pete Viper Sunglasses,’ and ‘Air Jordan,’” they said, You have received an advertisement for the product to which your data ascribes.

Tonight, Apple said in a statement: “We don’t keep audio recordings of Siri interactions unless you explicitly agree to help us improve Siri, and even then we only use the recordings for that purpose. Users can easily unsubscribe at any time.”

Facebook responded to similar theories in 2014 and 2016 before Mark Zuckerberg directly addressed them, saying “no” to the question while being questioned by Congress about the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal.

So, if Apple (and Facebook, Google, etc.) are telling the truth, why do you later see ads for things you only talked about?

There are other explanations, and attempts to confirm the rumors include a 2018 investigation that found no evidence of microphone spying, but did discover that some apps were secretly recording screen user activity, which was then sent to third parties.