Ads based on text messages

agffth said:

I'm not sure where to go with this so I'm starting here.

I listen to Pandora radio on the morning commutes to work. This morning there were 2 ads: AT&T and Trader Joes. AT&T wasn't that surprising but that was the first time I've seen Trader Joes.

What made me curious is that I mentioned both in text messages yesterday. That was the first time I mentioned Trader Joes. After thinking about it I noticed a lot of the Pandora ads are very relevant to me and things I mention in text messages all the time.

I have an iPhone with iOS 7.

Am I being paranoid, is this just coincidence, or is something more going on here?

Thanks.

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Alrescha said:

iMessages are encrypted on your device before they are sent and unencrypted on the receiving device. Nobody is reading those while they are in transit. It is extremely unlikely that Apple would go to all that trouble only to undo it in order to get a few pennies from Pandora. There is another company that operates that way though.

A.

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agffth said:

I was planning on doing some test keywords to see if they show up as ads.

I mention St. Louis a lot in my iMessages and get St. Louis Bread Co. ads on Pandora all the time. I send messages about college sports and the NBA a lot, I get ads about ESPN College Football and TNT NBA basketball games. It's starting to get strange. It may just be coincidence but it has me wondering.

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