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We have all suspected it, at least once in our lives. On the other hand, as Agatha Christie loved to repeat, “A clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues are proof.” After a conversation in which we show interest in something, a product or a service, that something magically reveals itself immediately afterwards as an advertisement or advice for purchases on the pages we frequent.
Yet, the thesis, against all perception, has never been proven, with some research and field tests giving negative results. Among these was a 2018 study conducted by Northeastern University, which analyzed the 18,000 most popular apps on Android smartphones, without identifying evidence to suggest that these applications secretly activated the microphone.
The most conservative hypothesis is that it is a problem of distorted perception caused by our selective attention towards the advertisements that interest us most. This is because, as always, our data has been tracked in different ways on the internet and on social media to create personalized advertisements based on our interests: from the videos we watch most, to the cookies and likes we put on social media, the fingerprints that we leave on the web are many. So it is possible that among these announcements there is one about a topic we have just talked about with our friends, but this does not mean that our smartphone has recorded the conversation. Coincidences that can be found in the mare magnum of the word wide web.
What is active listening
Today, however, there would be the “smoking gun”, i.e. proof that someone or something is spying on conversations or intercepting “keywords” that are used to create targeted ads. The news outlet 404 Media, which has identified a web page (later deleted) of the American company Cox Media Group (CMG) which promoted the “Active Listening” service, i.e. the ability to identify “relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs and other devices” using artificial intelligence to allow local businesses to target ads to those people. The page on the CMG Local Solutions website, which has since been shut down, didn’t mince words: “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you,” he said. «With Active Listening, CMG can now use voice data to target your advertising to the exact people you are looking for». The CMG Local Solutions information page always reveals how the service would work in an informative article dated November 28 (also it deleted). Its “active listening” technology can pick up conversations to provide local advertisers with a weekly list of consumers who are in the market for a particular product or service. CMG’s service is able to personalize a campaign by listening to keywords/objectives relevant to the business looking for customers. So, if the people who are listened to make statements like: «Maybe we need to move house», they will immediately receive an advertisement relating to various real estate agency ads on Google, YouTube, Bing and others (again according to what is written on the CMG website ). Other examples of what active listening can detect included, “Do we need a bigger car?” and “I feel like my lawyer is screwing me over.” The result, the company said, is “Advertising efficiency and time taken to a new level.”
Cox Media’s denial.
After the discovery of 404 Media, Cox Media Group clarified that its companies “do not listen to any conversations, but have access to an aggregated, anonymized and fully encrypted third-party data set that can be used for the placement of advertisements” . In practice, according to the company, CMG Local Solutions’ access to voice-based advertising data is collected from third-party platforms and devices “under the terms and conditions provided by such apps and accepted by their users”. In practice, according to what the company declared, the data would be collected through applications that we download and which legally have access to our microphone. In the since-deleted blog post, CMG Local Solutions discusses whether active listening is legal. “The short answer is: yes. It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When downloading or updating a new app prompts consumers for a multi-page terms of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, active listening is often included,” the company said in the post, which declared to work side by side with Amazon, Microsoft and Google as advertising partners.
The position of Google, Amazon and Apple
When asked by 404 Media, Google said that with Android 11 and later, apps can’t access the microphone or camera while running in the background, even if users have given explicit permission to do so by installing them. do it (with the very long terms of service that we never read). Amazon explained that «the product described would not be usable on Echo devices, because we do not share voice recordings with third parties». Apple, which has built a strong narrative on privacy, defends itself by stating that no app can access the microphone or camera of an iPhone or iPad without authorization, also stating that the data collected for the Siri voice assistant «is not used to create a marketing profile and are never sold to anyone.” No response was received from Microsoft. Summing up, where is the truth? Apart from the service advertised by Cox Media, there are no reports of other companies using this service to sell profiled advertising. Whether it’s a hoax orchestrated to attract potential customers or an experimental service, our flea in our ear continues to bother us.