Instagram, Facebook, and Google have almost officially been found guilty of secretly wiretapping users. The advertising company Cox Media Group (CMG), which cooperates with these tech giants, has admitted to this, reports Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to Ukrainian News.
CMG’s confession came during one of the company’s presentations. According to the presentation, the company uses Active Listening technology to target advertising. This technology allows artificial intelligence to eavesdrop on all conversations near the phone and analyse user actions on the network. Moreover, Active Listening is capable of capturing any sound through smartphone microphones, regardless of the device model. Active Listening’s algorithms process the information received to provide customers with the most accurate and relevant advertising.
To illustrate how the system works, an example is given: if a user says the phrase “need a new T-shirt” near their phone, they will soon start seeing a large number of targeted T-shirt ads.
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CMG’s top clients include tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram). However, after the information about the use of Active Listening was made public, Google and Meta hastily removed any references to CMG from their websites.
The companies’ reactions to this information varied. Amazon told the media that they were aware of the existence of this service, but had never used it. Facebook (Meta) said that they had “begun an urgent review” of this information after the media contacted them.