In November 2023, we reported on dubious claims<\/a> made by marketing firm Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions. The company advertised a service called Active Listening on a website<\/a> that said, \u201cIt\u2019s true. Your devices are listening to you\u201d and claimed it could use \u201cvoice data\u201d to help advertisers target ads to specific people.<\/p>\n Naturally, panic ensued<\/a>. 404 Media<\/a>, which initially spotted the website, for instance, wrote that the idea of smartphones listening to people to sell products \u201cmay finally be a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ars Technica via CMG Local Solutions<\/p>\n <\/a> The idea of a marketing firm using AI to \u201cdetect relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices\u201d in real time\u2014according to a since-deleted CMG blog post from November 2023 (still viewable via the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback Machine<\/a>)\u2014has raised alarms.<\/p>\n But it was also apparent that CMG\u2019s claims were unlikely to be true. The company never explained how it could remotely<\/a> extract enough computing and networking power from users\u2019 devices<\/a> to clandestinely capture and send voice recordings in \u201creal-time\u201d or obtain more intimate access to people\u2019s homes than law enforcement can without a warrant.<\/p>\n This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that CMG will pay $880,000 to settle the FTC\u2019s allegations<\/a> that CMG \u201cfalsely\u201d claimed \u201cto offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers\u2019 smart devices and that consumers had opted into such targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n The money will go to affected customers, the FTC said.<\/p>\n The FTC\u2019s announcement reads:<\/p>\n According to the [FTC-filed] complaints, this service did not, in fact, listen in on consumers\u2019 conversations or use voice data at all\u2014nor did the service accurately place ads in customers\u2019 desired locations. Instead, the service the companies provided consisted of reselling\u2014at a significant markup\u2014email lists obtained from other data brokers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n After working with CMG, two marketing firms, Wisconsin-based\u00a01010 Digital Works LLC<\/a> and New Hampshire-based MindSift LLC<\/a>, will each pay $25,000 settlements.<\/p>\n In its since-deleted blog from 2023, CMG claimed that Active Listening relied on an unnamed CMG partner that had a \u201cgrowing ability to access microphone data on devices.\u201d But when we first covered Active Listening, a company spokesperson admitted to Ars that CMG did not \u201clisten to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymized, and fully encrypted data set that can be used for ad placement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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