> That doesn't explain how facebook (google's competitor) got ahold of that info, or how people with iPhones are being eavesdropped on.

It can easily explain how people with iPhones are being eavesdropped on: "those indicators aren't trustworthy". According to this theory, the microphone in an iPhone is active despite the indicator not being displayed. That's identical to the Android theory.

To extend the theory to Facebook, you'd need to assume one of these:

(1) The unreliability of the indicator on Android is a matter of incompetence on the part of Google, and Facebook is exploiting it.

(2) Google has a privileged stealth-microphone-access permission, and Facebook has negotiated for access to it.

Go reverse the operating system and you'll find this is just a paranoid fantasy. Many others have done so already, so you can also just hit up google and find their analyses.

That's not really relevant to the question here. We have this dialog:

A: You know phone microphones aren't secretly taping us because indicators display when they're active.

B: Those indicators aren't reliable.

A: That can't explain how iPhone users would get taped.

Where did that come from?

The indicators are reliable, or do you have proof otherwise?