Ever suddenly come across an advertisement for something you were just talking about? Well, we could never be sure if our phones were listening to us until one of Facebook’s advertising partners confirmed the existence of ‘Active Listening.’
According to a report from 404 Media, “Active Listening” is a software that uses an artificial intelligence model to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations”. Leaked documents cite a pitch deck from Cox Media Group (CMG), which is a TV and radio giant that is one of Facebook’s alleged marketing partners. “Advertisers can pair this voice data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers,” the deck continues.
Aside from Facebook, Google and Amazon also adopt the same practices and are clients of CMG’s Active Listening service. Upon being reached out by 404 Media for a comment on the partnership, Google reportedly removed CMG from its “Partners Program.”
Companies deny using ‘Active Listening’ technology
A Meta spokesperson also informed that CMG was a general partner, not a partner in the program advertised in the deck. “Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” he noted. “We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
An Amazon spokesperson also noted that they have never worked with CMG for ads and have no plans to do it in the future.
This isn’t the first time though where 404 Media has reported on CMG’s shady voice targeting service. In December last year, 404 Media not only put a marketing company on blast for boasting about such creepy tech on its podcast but also talked about the Active Listening functionality.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” noted a blog post from CMG from November last year. “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.”
CMG revealed that it can identify users who are “ready-to-buy” and create targeted ad lists based on their interests.
Comments