this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
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In case people forgot:
https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/active-listening-marketers-smartphones-ad-targeting-cox-media-group-1235841007/
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
They (basically any large online retailer or advertiser) are, in fact, listening to everything you say near your phone, near your alexa, your echo, your smart device.
Linking heard words and phrases with your known shopping activity + a gigantic dataset + statistical analysis = they can predict all kinds of things about you, with shockingly high accuracy, and thus aim products at you.
You know how archaeologists and detectives can make a decent profile of a person or group's daily lifestyle by analyzing your garbage?
Welcome to the cyberpunk dystopia version of that.
Both links are paywalled, but if I’m remembering correctly, that company (CMG) eventually had to correct their claim that phones were actively listening to everything you say. It was an overzealous marketing guy trying to oversell. They admitted in the end that they use the same info that data brokers have on you based on data gathered from your browsing and other activity, not from actively listening to you.
Siri for example is designed in a way where it “listens” for your voice to call it, but that mechanism is completely separate from the actual Siri that connects to the internet to understand you.
It would drain your battery like crazy if your phone would actively listen, transcribe and transmit whatever your say.
I love that Siri is kinda stupid for just this very reason.
Besides the fact that present-day battery technology makes this impossible, modern smartphones display a very obvious indicator when apps are using the microphone.
Hotword detection notwithstanding, as that happens at the hardware level.
I'm not saying this information is wrong (I've previously shared 404 Media's reporting on this as well) but as far as I know the only source for this claim is still from CMG itself. No one has independently verified that CMG is actually capable of doing this, nor has any source come forward to confirm that "yes, this is real and my company uses it". I believe the closest we've had to that is a single company confirming that CMG made these same claims to them in a sales pitch. Basically, the entire story is based on marketing material that could also be complete bullshit. The tech industry is infested with grifters who will say anything to get ahead and this could just be another case of that. I understand that many people do not understand how data collection works and have been convinced for years that "the only way they could have known that is if they were listening to me" but 404 Media's reporting on this is not definitive proof that this technology actually exists and is seeing widespread use.
so yeah, sounds like the company's claims might not be completely true if they're boasting about working with Amazon.
I'm still waiting for a single targeted add to be something I want, the best they've done so far is try and sell me things I already own.
There’s a lotta Apple hate on this site, but I really do appreciate their stance to apps using the camera and microphone.