Advertising agency admits listening to conversations via smartphones

With the advent of new technologies and online advertisements, a general belief has emerged in people's minds. It's the feeling that our smartphones are constantly being tapped. This feeling is shared by many people and does not come out of nowhere,We have all already been confronted with advertisements corresponding to a subject that we have previously discussed orally.

Despite the disturbing coincidences encountered by many people, scientific studies carried out on the subjectnever reached a conclusive result, which in fact shows that our conversations are spied on using the microphone of our smartphones, for advertising purposes. This is what reportsFélicien Vallet, in charge of the AI department atCNIL, in his report “Honey, my smartphone is listening to me?!».

What if it was true?

However, it could be thatJoseph Cox, and two of his colleagues from404 media, have recently unearthed new information on this subject. Joseph is an investigative journalist, and his work has already “resulted in fines worth hundreds of millions of dollars» as well as “to the closure of technology companies.»

The information he found tends to show that telephone tapping, as well as that of any other connected equipment with a microphone, for advertising purposes, is perhaps not a myth. By going to the agency's websiteCox Media Group(CMG), he realized that it offered a service called “Active Listening » or “Active Listening” in French.The agency claims it is able to identify potential clients “based on informal conversations in real time».The offer page, as well as any other mention of active listening, has since been removed byCox Media Group, but the mentions can still be consulted via an archive site such asWaybackMachine. For example:

It can be read “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you”, or in French: “It's true. Your devices listen to you.»

Everything is legal according to the agency

CMGstates in a press release that: “Voice-based advertising data and other data is collected by these platforms and devices under the terms and conditions provided by these applications and accepted by their users, and may then be sold to third-party companies and converted into anonymized information for them. advertisers. This anonymized data is then resold by many advertising agencies.»

She adds: “CMG Companies does not listen to any conversations and does not have access to anything beyond an aggregated, anonymized, and fully encrypted third-party data set that can be used for ad placement. We regret any confusion and are committed to ensuring our marketing is clear and transparent .»

Google,MicrosoftetAmazonare also partners ofCMG, and did not respond to requests from404 medias. Apart from Google which gave an evasive response, without responding in substance.

404 mediaalso investigated the company a few days laterMindSift, which openly bragged on YouTube about being the distributor of this kind of active listening technology.