Cox Media Group (CMG), a TV and radio news corporation, admitted to its investors in a pitched deck that its “Active Listening” software “capture[s] real-time intent data by listening to our conversations.”
404 Media reported that such marketing firms listen to smartphone microphone activity to determine pushed ads.
CMG’s pitch deck stated, “Advertisers can pair this voice data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers.” Consumers “leave a data trail based on their conversations and online behavior,” which machine learning AI collects and collates.
Facebook, Amazon and Google are said to be among the many clients CMG works with. However, after the release of 404 Media’s report, Google removed the company from its “Partners Program,” reported The New York Post.
Amazon responded to 404 Media, denying any allegations of working with CMS and stating it “has no plans to do so.” It further said any partner that was to take such action would be violating Amazon’s rules.
The Post pressed Google on the issue as well and received this response:
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.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, told The Post that it was investigating CMG’s actions to see if it violated any terms of service:
Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years … We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.
In December, 404 Media reported that New Hampshire-based company MindSift bragged about the same practice of CMG, listening to people’s phones and creating targeted ads based upon that information.
In a YouTube episode, cofounder Andy Galeshahi said to attract clients, “I’ll say like, ‘Hey, have you ever talked about something and saw an ad for it?’ We’re the guys. That’s us. We distribute the tech. The technology has been around for a while, but the torch has been passed.”
A month before 404 Media’s December report, CMG posted on their blog, “We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” The post has been deleted but remains archived.
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It is now confirmed that marketing groups violate personal privacy by obtaining data to court business. It remains unknown whether these companies will face reprisals or if this will continue to trend with the advancements in AI.
