Marketing Company Claims That It Actually Is Listening to Your Phone and Smart Speakers to Target Ads - eviltoast
“What would it mean for your business if you could target potential clients who are actively discussing their need for your services in their day-to-day conversations? No, it's not a Black Mirror episode—it's Voice Data, and CMG has the capabilities to use it to your business advantage.”

A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations of consumers through embedded microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices to gather data and use it to target ads, according to a review of CMG marketing materials by 404 Media and details from a pitch given to an outside marketing professional. Called “Active Listening,” CMG claims the capability can identify potential customers “based on casual conversations in real time.”

  • peregus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    How can they technically do that? They would need their own app because Android by itself isn’t listening (it does while using voice command). And why would they say they can while it’s against the law to do it (at least in Europe, but I guess in the USA too).

    • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yeah it sounds sus. Apple themselves published an explanation of how siri doesn’t actively listen to you all the time, so I’m not sure how they can bypass that.

      • peregus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        And Google says:

        About this voice and audio activity setting

        When you speak to Google services, Google uses its audio recognition technologies to process your audio and respond to you. For example, if you touch the mic icon to search by voice, Google’s audio recognition technologies translate what you say into words and phrases that Search looks up in an index to give you the most relevant results.

        Web & App Activity saves things you do on Google sites, apps, and services in your Google Account on Google servers and can include associated info like location. Certain interactions may not be saved.

        This optional voice and audio activity setting lets you also save audio recordings with Web & App Activity when you interact with Google Search, Assistant, and Maps. This setting is off unless you choose to turn it on

        • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          And here’s what I saw on a comment from another post about this. From arstechnica:

          The company added that it does not “listen to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymized and fully encrypted data set that can be used for ad placement” and “regret[s] any confusion.”

          I knew it was bullshit.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’d guess they’re planning on making their own stuff that does. I’ve already seen a “free” TV with an extra screen that just shows ads, has a camera, etc.

      People are suckers, and there’s plenty of unscrupulous companies willing to monetise that.

      • peregus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Well, “actually listening to your phone” is a very strong statement (which I think it’s false) and completely different from what you’ve reported. This sounds to me to a very big fake news!