Your long-held suspicions are confirmed, according to a report: Your phone really is listening to you.
A marketing firm whose clients include Facebook and Google has privately admitted that it listens to users’ smartphone microphones and then places ads based on the information that is picked up, according to 404 Media.
Cox Media Group, the television and radio news conglomerate, admitted in a pitch deck to investors that its “Active Listening” software uses artificial intelligence to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations,” according to the report.
“Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers,” the company wrote in the pitch deck.
CMG noted in the deck that consumers “leave a data trail based on their conversations and online behavior” and that the AI-powered software collects and analyzes said “behavioral and voice data from 470+ sources.”
The slideshow includes claims that Facebook, Google and Amazon are clients of CMG’s “Active Listening” service.
Google removed CMG from its “Partners Program” website after it was contacted by 404 Media to comment on the matter.
“All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action,” a Google spokesperson told The Post.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, admitted that it was reviewing CMG to see whether it violated any of its terms of service.
“Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” a Meta spokesperson told The Post.
“We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
An Amazon spokesperson told 404 Media that its advertising arm “has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.”
The company said that it would take action against any partner that violates its rules.
Last December, MindSift, a New Hampshire-based company, bragged that it used voice data to place targeted ads by listening to people’s everyday conversations through microphones on their devices, according to 404 Media.
The report revealed the existence of CMG’s “Active Listening” feature.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” the company wrote in a since-deleted Cox blog post from November 2023.
“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.”
The Post has sought comment from CMG and Amazon.
