We've all had that moment: you were just talking about a product, and the very next day -- or hour -- you see an ad on Facebook about it. The idea that Facebook is listening in on your conversations and tailoring ads based on what it hears seems to be gaining currency. "We talked about Lexus in the car - and guess what: My friend got a Lexus ad," Julie Albright, a professor at the University of Southern California said recently. And, the company has an explanation for the phenomenon: Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, otherwise known as frequency illusion or recency illusion. "No we’re not using anyone’s microphone to listen in," Facebook Messenger VP of product Stan Chudnovsky said recently at Web Summit in Lisbon.

Source: Forbes November 24, 2017 22:45 UTC