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OAN Staff James Meyers
10:52 AM – Tuesday, September 3, 2024
A new report has revealed what most people have been suspecting, your phone really is listening to you.
A marketing firm who provides services for Facebook and Google has privately admitted that it listens to users though smartphone microphones and then puts ads based on the information that is picked up, according to 404 Media.
Additionally, Cox Media Group (CMG), the television and radio news company, revealed in a pitch deck to investors that its “Active Listening” software uses artificial intelligence to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations,” according to the report.
“Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers,” the company wrote in the pitch deck.
CMG also revealed in the deck that consumers “leave a data trail based on their conversations and online behavior” and that the AI-powered software analyzes said “behavioral and voice data from 470+ sources.”
The presentation showed claims that Amazon, Facebook and Google are clients of CMG’s “Active Listening” service.
Meanwhile, Google removed CMG from its “Partners Program” website after it was contacted by 404 Media to comment on the matter.
“All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action,” a Google spokesperson told the New York Post.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, admitted that it was reviewing CMG to see whether it violated any of its terms of service.
“Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” a Meta spokesperson stated.
“We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
However, an Amazon spokesperson spoke to 404 Media stating that its advertising “has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.”
The company also said that it would take action against any partner that violates its rules.
This comes after MindSift, a New Hampshire-based company, stated that it used voice data to place targeted ads by listening to people’s everyday conversations through microphones on their devices, according to 404 Media.
Furthermore, the report revealed the existence of CMG’s “Active Listening” feature.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” the company wrote in a since-deleted Cox blog post from November 2023.
“It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page term of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.”
CMG is an American media conglomerate based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company provides broadcast media, digital media, advertising and marketing services, and also generated $22.1 billion in revenue in 2022.
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