Phone owner paranoia has been justified. As was speculated by every stoner with an iPhone, we are being listened to. A company called “Alphonso” is designing software with the sole purpose of spying on users in order to target ads to them.

Be careful what you say around your phone. The New York Times describes how it works:

 "Using a smartphone’s microphone, Alphonso’s software can detail what people watch by identifying audio signals in TV ads and shows, sometimes even matching that information with the places people visit and the movies they see”

The software is being used in reportedly over 1000 apps, many available in the Google Play store and some in the Apple App Store.

The culprit apps can be found using the search term “Alphonso Automated” in the Google Play store. We conducted a search of our own and found dozens of them.

Alphonso is more stalker than start-up and they straight up brag about it on their website.

Yeah, that’s how many people have these apps on their phones. This is some borderline Black Mirror shit.

Luckily, there's an easy solution to this tomfoolery. You can give Big Brother a big middle finger by disallowing Alphonso Apps from using your microphone, or better yet, uninstalling those bitches.