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September 9, 2024: Even more devices are spying on you

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Today: Even more devices are spying on you

The page above lists examples of private family conversations that can be picked up by spy devices. As CMG puts it, its service can “detect pertinent conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.”

Excerpt below.

Imagine This...

What could it do for your business, if you were able to target potential clients or customers who are using terms like this in their day to day conversations:

• “The car lease ends in a month – we need a plan.”

• “We need to get serious about planning for retirement.”

• “A minivan would be perfect for us.”

• “This AC is on its last leg!”

• “Do I see mold on the ceiling?”

• “We need a better mortgage rate.”

Active Listening can make that happen for you!

We know this sounds like something from the future, but we are there! We can customize your campaign to listen for any keywords/targets relevant to your business.

. . . Active Listening begins and is analyzed via AI to detect pertinent conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.

From the slide deck recently unearthed by 404 Media:





Responses, reported by 404 Media and Futurism:

• Google: “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.”

• Amazon: “Amazon Ads has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.”

• Facebook: “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.”

---

404 Media articles

• Marketing Company Claims That It Actually Is Listening to Your Phone and Smart Speakers to Target Ads (by Joseph Cox, Dec 14, 2023): “Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners, according to a CMG presentation obtained by 404 Media.”

• Company Brags About Using Smart Device Microphone Audio to Target Ads on Their Podcast (by Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox, Dec 15, 2023): “Andy Galeshahi, one of the cofounders of [MindSift], says when discussing MindSift to potential 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.’”

• Here’s the Pitch Deck for ‘Active Listening’ Ad Targeting (by Joseph Cox, Aug 26, 2024)

Futurism summary

• In Leak, Facebook Partner Brags About Listening To Your Phone’s Microphone To Serve Ads For Stuff You Mention (Futurism, Sep 1, 2024): “‘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.’”

Possible explanations

• CMG is hyping something that doesn’t exist. Devices don’t have to listen, because they get enough data from other cues (proximity to other people’s phones etc.).

    --> Google claimed in 2017 that it no longer reads Gmail to personalize ads (source).

• CMG’s feature does exist, but the Big Tech companies aren’t involved – CMG only mentions their names for hype value. (In this case: who is tapping into the microphones?)

• CMG’s feature exists, and the Big Tech companies are involved. (Though it would be SHOCKING if a Big Tech company didn’t tell the truth!)

The twist

• All of the explanations above are about what’s happening today. What’s more important is considering Big Tech’s plans for the future. For example:



• From Ars Technica (Oct 11, 2018): “Amazon has patented technology that could let Alexa analyze your voice to determine whether you are sick or depressed and sell you products based on your physical or emotional condition. The patent, titled ‘Voice-based determination of physical and emotional characteristics of users,’ was issued this week; Amazon filed the patent application in March 2017.”

• It’s already happening. Amazon-Powered AI Cameras Used to Detect Emotions of Unwitting UK Train Passengers (Wired, June 17, 2024): “Thousands of people catching trains in the United Kingdom likely had their faces scanned by Amazon software as part of widespread artificial intelligence trials, new documents reveal. The image recognition system was used to predict travelers’ age, gender, and potential emotions — with the suggestion that the data could be used in advertising systems in the future.”

More surveillance

• Millions of Americans impacted by surveillance data collection in some cars (Fox News, Sep 4, 2024): featuring past Techtonic guest Albert Fox Cahn – about GM’s OnStar spying on car owners, and selling their data, without their knowledge or consent. There’s now a lawsuit from thousands of drivers.

• How to escape Honda’s privacy hell (Sherwood, May 6, 2024):

So what can they collect?

“Pretty much everything,” said Misha Rykov, a research associate at the Mozilla Foundation, who worked on the car-privacy report. “Sex-life data, biometric data, demographic, race, sexual orientation, gender — everything.”

. . . [The car company] can notify your insurance company that you braked too hard or sped up too fast. Car companies can share your info with law enforcement without your knowledge. A domestic abuser could use it to track your whereabouts.

• Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla — and they might tow it (SF Chronicle, Aug 31, 2024): “Officers now frequently seek video from bystander Teslas, and usually get the owners’ consent to download it without having to serve a warrant. Still, he said, tows are sometimes necessary, if police can’t locate a Tesla owner and need the video “to pursue all leads.” . . . In at least three instances in July and August, Oakland police sought to tow a Tesla into evidence to obtain — via a second court order — its stored video.”

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