from the is-it-still-being-paranoid-when-you-find-out-you're-right? dept.
"We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal?":
In a pitch deck to prospective customers, one of Facebook's alleged marketing partners explained how it listens to users' smartphone microphones and advertises to them accordingly.
As 404 Media reports based on documents leaked to its reporters, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its so-called "Active Listening" software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to "capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations."
"Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers," the deck continues.
In the same slideshow, CMG counted Facebook, Google, and Amazon as clients of its "Active Listening" service. After 404 reached out to Google about its partnership, the tech giant removed the media group from the site for its "Partners Program," which prompted Meta, the owner of Facebook, to admit that it is reviewing CMG to see if it violates any of its terms of service.
An Amazon spokesperson, meanwhile, told 404 that its Ads arm "has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so. The spox added, confusingly, that if one of its marketing partners violates its rules, the company will take action.
This latest leak marks the third time in a year that 404 has reported on CMG's shady voice targeting service. Last December, the independent news site not only put a marketing company on blast for boasting about such creepy tech on its podcast, but also revealed the existence of CMG's Active Listening feature.
Together with this latest update to the CMG saga, these stories bolster longstanding suspicions about advertisers using our phones to listen to us.
"We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal?" a since-deleted Cox blog post from November 2023 noted. "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."
Also see: Pitch Deck Gives New Details on Company's Plan to Listen to Your Devices for Ad Targeting
Related Stories
If you're looking to buy a TV in 2025, you may be disappointed by the types of advancements TV brands will be prioritizing in the new year. While there's an audience of enthusiasts interested in developments in tech like OLED, QDEL, and [Micro LED], plus other features like transparency and improved audio, that doesn't appear to be what the industry is focused on.
Today's TV selection has a serious dependency on advertisements and user tracking.
[...] One of the most impactful changes to the TV market next year will be Walmart owning Vizio. For Walmart, the deal, which closed on December 3 for approximately $2.3 billion, is about owning the data collection capabilities of Vizio's SmartCast OS.
[...] In 2025, buying a Vizio TV won't just mean buying a TV from a company that's essentially an ad business. It will mean fueling Walmart's ad business. With Walmart also owning Onn and Amazon owning Fire TVs, that means there's one less TV brand that isn't a cog in a retail giant's ever-expanding ad machine.
[...] Further, Walmart has expressed a goal of becoming one of the 10 biggest ad companies, with the ad business notably having higher margins than groceries. It could use Vizio, via more plentiful and/or intrusive ads, to fuel those goals.
And Walmart's TV market share is set to grow in the new year. Paul Gray, research director of consumer electronics and devices at Omdia, told Ars Technica he expects that "the new combined sales (Vizio plus Walmart's white label) will be bigger than the current market leader Samsung."
[...] 'Walmart has told you by buying Vizio that these large retailers need a connected television advertising platform to tie purchases to," Martin told Bloomberg. "That means Target and other large retailers have that reason to buy Roku to tie Roku's connected television ad units to their sales in their retail stores. And by the way, Roku has much higher margins than any retailer.'"
[...] TV brands have become so dependent on ads that some are selling TVs at a loss to push ads. How did we get to the point where TV brands view their hardware as a way to track and sell to viewers? Part of the reason TV OSes are pushing the limits on ads is that many viewers seem willing to accept them, especially in the name of saving money.
[...]Still, analysts agree that even among more expensive TV brands, there has been a shift toward building out ad businesses and OSes over improving hardware features like audio.
"This is a low-margin business, and even in the premium segment, the revenues from ads and data are significant. Also, the sort of consumer who buys a premium TV is likely to be especially interesting to advertisers," Gray said.
[...] In 2025, TVs will continue focusing innovation around software, which has immediate returns via ad sales compared to new hardware, which can take years to develop and catch on with shoppers. For some, this is creating a strong demand for dumb TVs, but unfortunately, there are no immediate signs of that becoming a trend.
As Horner put it, "This is an advertising/e-commerce-driven market, not a consumer-driven market. TV content is just the bait in the trap."
Related articles on SoylentNews:
Facebook Ad Partner Admits to Listening to Your Microphone to You Serve Ads on What You Talk About - 20240904
Prime Video Cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos Support From Ad Tier—and Didn't Tell Subs - 20240217
After Luring Customers With Low Prices, Amazon Stuffs Fire TVs With Ads - 20231112
The Role of TV Ad Content in Viewers' Zapping Behavior - 20220717
It's Still Stupidly, Ridiculously Difficult To Buy A 'Dumb' TV - 20220416
Vizio TVs Are Now Showing Banner Ads Over Live TV - 20220403
TV Advertising's Watershed Moment: It is Finally Becoming More Like Digital - 20200409
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Taking the Smarts Out of Smart TVs Would Make Them More Expensive - 20190122
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 06 2024, @07:12AM (11 children)
And watch how nobody will get sued or go to jail over this.
Worse, there should be a crowd of people with pitchforks gathering outside 1, Hacker Way demanding Fuckerberg's head, and there isn't because people are tired of fighting the relentless assaults of surveillance capitalism, and apathy and submission are the norm now.
Until the next odious violation of privacy and basic decency, when the perps will suffer zero backlash and zero consequences once again...
(Score: 5, Touché) by janrinok on Friday September 06 2024, @07:40AM
I do hope that you are wrong - but I already know that my optimism is entirely unfounded.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday September 06 2024, @08:23AM (4 children)
> It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. ... multi-page term of use agreement ...
Note that it is legal, so indeed no one will get sued.
But what about people in the vicinity of the device who have not signed the agreement?
(Score: 2) by r_a_trip on Friday September 06 2024, @09:11AM (3 children)
Liability for the devices "owner"? Since in theory we have all read all of the legalese in the EULA/ToS, we should be aware that our phone is now a little snitch. So can it be agued that the onus is on us to warn third parties that they might recorded for advertising purposes?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday September 06 2024, @12:11PM (2 children)
Here in the US we have many laws that are different from state-to-state. Many states allow recording if at least one party consents (the phone's owner). But some states' laws require all parties to consent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws [wikipedia.org]
I am not a lawyer, but I've done some research and it's not that clear. The legal blame may lie with the phone's provider, or whatever app is doing the surreptitious listening / recording. It would require some strong and focused legal research and case-building. Legal research and case-building is one area where computers and AI would be very helpful and powerful.
Here's my understanding of the law: just because someone puts something in a contract or agreement, does not mean it's enforceable. You can not make a legal agreement that would hold up in court if it goes against written laws. Sure, people do it every day, but it would fail in court if someone takes it to court.
However, ...
I remember the case where public school administration people were caught spying on school children through cameras in school-provided laptops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District [wikipedia.org]
NO criminal charges were ever filed, even though investigators found pictures of inside students' bedrooms.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 06 2024, @02:00PM
Well, it *should* fail in court. Whether it would or not is much less certain. It depends on the lawyers skill (on both sides), on the judge, on the jury, and to some extent on how must various parties invest in the case.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2024, @02:48AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06 2024, @10:42AM (3 children)
Our house has three Google home active listening devices. For some time it has been clear that we are served advertising (/ "news" stories) on our Android phones which corresponds to things we have said either near a phone or the home devices without specific "Hey Google" activation of the microphones.
Recent "improvements" in the system have made it much more difficult to access voice assistant services, I n the name of "security". For instance, I used to be able to say "Hey Google, set a reminder for 'time' 'subject'" and it would "just work" but last night the Google assistant was demanding voice print matching, I queried "who am I?" And got the correct "Hi Joe" response, so it knows who I am but is now refusing access to "personal services" like my calendar reminders...
Still serving up those spooky targeted "news stories" matching our ambient conversation topics though.
I guess I should be worried that if I ever "go dark" and quit feeding a stream of ambient chatter to my devices that a SWAT team will be dispatched to investigate the anomaly, but the home devices are still convenient, and it's not like we will stop using our phones or credit cards...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Friday September 06 2024, @11:14AM (2 children)
Clearly you are spending to much time on personal errands and not enough time purchasing things advertised. Google, Siri and Alexa knows ...
Still it wasn't that long ago where all this was dismissed as a paranoid delusion for the tinfoil crowd. No they would never do this, it's so unfeasible, it would require to much effort, you are not that interesting. Oh right. You are. Gotta serve the correct ads to the masses. It totally is not spying on you ... except that it totally is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06 2024, @11:35AM
You know, we discuss a lot of things "in private" that the advertisers should not be listening to - and apparently they don't because we don't get targeted with that kind of stuff.
By the way, "that kind of stuff" are issues surrounding care and education of our special needs children, and anyone willing to listen, even Facebook algorithms, is welcome - the more visibility this shit-show gets, the better.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06 2024, @04:13PM
>not enough time purchasing things advertised.
Not my problem if they can't show the right ads to me.
Yesterday my USPS "mail on the way" e-mail informed me that we have 10 packages currently inbound - feels to me like we're shopping more than enough online already.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday September 08 2024, @06:30PM
I haven't read the terms of service, have you? It just may give them the right to spy on you!
I could have sworn I posted a journal titled "Deleting Facebook" but I can't find it.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 06 2024, @07:15AM
I'm willing to bet the AI is called Llama...
Which would make Facebook doubly an accessory.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Friday September 06 2024, @10:32AM
Answer: No. There are laws against recording conversations without at least one of the parties being aware. Sometimes, all parties.
Oh, there's a click-through agreement when your phone updates itself?
Have you noticed that your phone will update itself after X amount of time, regardless whether or not you've agreed/clicked anything at all?
It is not legal to do this. Presumably even-if they put it in some shrink-wrap agreement, as it's *explicitly* illegal. You can't sign away your OSHA rights.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday September 06 2024, @01:15PM
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg [wikiquote.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Friday September 06 2024, @01:41PM (3 children)
People were up in arms about your phone "watching" you. So Android incorporated a green dot to show you when the camera is on.
Notice how they don't put a red "recording" dot on the other corner, to show you when your phone is listening.
Proof by omission. Or scare-mongering. Take your pick.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 06 2024, @02:43PM
Because you think Google will turn on the light if they want to watch?
The only way to ensure Google doesn't watch is taping over the camera. Or disconnecting it - if you can even open the damn phone.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 06 2024, @04:17PM
The red dot would unduly drain battery life, since it's always on...
I don't know what's worse: no dot to remind you, or a dot "to remind you" which can be turned off and still the phone watches / listens?
I _think_ I trust my phone to be deactivated when I power it off, but with today's multi-architecture multi-core phone processors I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't an "ultra-low-power" listener always running, because: reasons.
Faraday cage shielded carry-cases FTW!
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday September 07 2024, @04:52PM
If developer mode is enabled on your phone, its a one liner adb command to enable or disable the green dot for 24 hours IIRC.
I never worked on it but very hand wavy generally speaking you can turn new features on or off because your software will probably run on phones before and after the change, so there's plenty of places to look it up online.
Apparently on post Android 12 phones you turn it off with adb shell cmd device_config put privacy camera_mic_icons_enabled false default
And turn it back on with a pretty obvious "true" instead of "false" above.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday September 07 2024, @04:46PM
Don't forget that this was heavily suppressed as a conspiracy theory until it was admitted to be true.
As is the usual in the 2020s, conspiracy theories are tomorrow's legacy mainstream 'journalism' headlines.