Phones do listen in on conversations: Marketing farm acknowledges rumours

News Mania Desk/ Sohom Roy /6th  September 2024

The longstanding belief that our very own smartphones are spying on our behaviour by listening to our conversations has just been confirmed.

Cox Media Group, a close associate of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, also a major corporate in the television and radio news industry, are believed to use the ‘Active Listening technology’.

A recent report via 404 Media confirmed that not only the things that are being searched using a device, but also what is being spoken in front it can be and has been used to generate targeted ads.

Suppose someone is speaking about purchasing a new sofa over the call, as soon as that person hangs up the call and engages in any kind of internet activity, many targeted ads of sofas will be displayed to that person.

A report delved further into this matter by saying that the company came clean about this misdeed in a presentation to investors that they use AI along with the Active Listening technology to collect real-time data on user intentions by monitoring and analysing conversations. This unauthorized monitoring by AI, as mentioned in their pitch deck, lets advertisers combine voice data with behavioural data, enabling them to precisely target consumers who are actively considering a purchase, creating a powerful tool for targeted advertising.

Cox Media also claimed that this tech helps to collect the data trail left by the user “on their conversations and online behaviour”. The AI-powered software collects and analyzes “behavioural and voice data from 470+ sources.”

Last December, 404 Media exposed this marketing company for promoting invasive tech through their podcast.

This news has created a ripple effect that has unsettled the netizens about Meta and Amazon, who are directly related to the marketing firm.

Meta has launched thorough review and  of the agency’s terms of service to confirm whether they have been collecting and utilising user data without explicit permission, potentially violating their contractual obligations and compromising user trust.

In contrast to that, Amazon has denied their association with the agency’s data privacy breach and also clarified that they do not plan to work with the agency. Amazon also strictly warned that they will take legal action if they find that terms of service is breached by any of their partners to reassure their users about data protection and maintaining their standard of business.

They also mentioned that Cox Media Group once stated in a now-deleted post, that the users agree with the Active Listening tech every time they download a new app. It said, “We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal? 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.”

So any user is vulnerable to data monitoring who have often overlooked the terms of use agreement and hastily agreed to it when installing a new app or updating an existing one.