If you ever thought that Facebook was listening in on your conversations to hit you with targeted advertising, you may have been right.
Meta and Google were allegedly clients of an advertiser’s open-mic surveillance program.
Meta and Google were allegedly clients of an advertiser’s open-mic surveillance program.
The advertising industry has been trying to improve how it targets ads to users for years, often by mining data for information to build user profiles. However, in the latest revelation, it may have been assisted by smartphones and tablets actively monitoring your everyday conversations.
A slide deck from Cox Media Group seen by 404 Media discusses a service it offered that effectively performed surveillance on a user. Called “Active Listening,” the document leak says it could use a device’s microphone to listen in to a user’s speech whenever they are within audible range.