this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
10 points (91.7% liked)

News and discussions about technology

241 readers
1 users here now

A place to share and discuss the latest news in the world of all kinds of technology. **Click here to support the development of Kbin**

founded 2 years ago
10
Marketing Company Claims That It Actually Is Listening to Your Phone and Smart Speakers to Target Ads (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
5 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Art3sian 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People freak out about this but I’m a marketer, and it’s not as bad as people think.

You’re a data point in a database with millions of other data points, and all targeting towards you is automated through tagging. No one is specifically looking at you or specifically listening to you. It’s not even coded and stored in ways that can be consumed as images or sound.

For the record, I don’t work with this tech. I just know how it works, and where I don’t necessarily agree with it, I also don’t care because of how I know it works.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is bad and remains an invasion of our privacy. There is no justification for snooping on unsuspecting individuals. And you need to consider the fact that ads and marketing are not just for bathing soaps or toothpastes, they are also used at large scale by political actors. Such intimate levels of data can easily be weaponised and used for social engineering both by corporate and non-corporate entities.