NONE of that data can predict a random occurrence discussion that goes in a specific direction.

A great example is something that happened to me in 2015. One night I was out with friends, and one of them had a really bad panic attack. The next day I was discussing it with a colleague during a smoke break, who recommended he gets a clip-on pulse oximeter. No searches, nothing, literally just a half minute detour in our chat. I repeat, nothing was typed in or looked up or in any way entered into any computer intentionally.

Five minutes later we're sitting in front of our respective computers and I start getting ads for the very thing. Mind you, we're still at a point where nothing noted during this discussion was entered into any computer. Explain this.

You're right that they don't need to, but in reality they do whether they announce it or not.

In 2017 I tested this at home alone in my apartment in by myself using my smarphone by finding a site with lots of banner ads, monologing next to my phone about a topic with no relation to my current life at the time for about a minute, then refreshing the page. To my horror, the exact thing I was monologing about showed up on every single banner ad. Nothing in my life was going on related to that topic and the only thing connecting me and the topic was my own vocal words.

That was the moment I decided to avoid Google/big tech for the rest of my life.

Okay but how does all of that

Tell them I'm in the market for a toilet seat?

And then forget to tell them - I only need 1 toilet seat?

Except they think I'm a 65 year old radiological oncologist in Florida named [my name]. First off, my name is unusual enough that I used to keep tabs on all 13 of us. (you get really bored in the hospital unless you give yourself something to do) None of us work in medicine (well I offer some medical CPEs but that's education, not medicine) I've lived in the hospital I guess. None of us live in Florida. The most famous of us used to be a hockey player, but he hasn't done shit lately. He's been to Florida. I'm sure. There's a hickey team there in Miami, right?

I have been getting ads for stents and sutures and clips and bullshit like isn't this supposed to be the dude who aims the radiation gun and burns out the cancer? For 25 godsdamned years. How long has goggle existed? That long. I don't know how I fucked their profile of me but I managed it somehow.

It may not even be that they advertised kayaking to you. They may just have a very good model of your behaviour that predicts you're likely to be interested in kayaking.

I have one smart TV and a few streaming devices, none of which have microphones. Yes that includes the remotes. I have zero smart speakers even plugged in to power.

I do have one smart phone with a least one microphone though.

Except that doesn't happen.

Except as I said NOBODY looked up the term. How many times and in how many forms do I have to state that the MENTION of pulse oximeters was: verbal only, in no way entered into a computer before I started getting the adverts?

The discussion itself wasn't even that long, colleague asked why I looked so tired, I told him how the previous night we had to call an ambulance and sort the guy out, colleague said "maybe he should get a cheap pulse oximeter, it can be helpful to predict attacks and handle them without a call [for an ambulance]", and that was it. Topic was dropped.

And no, mutual friends didn't look it up either as they didn't care much for the guy (tbf it was a super toxic community I'm glad I've left behind).