Many times suddenly come across an advertisement for something you were just searching about? Well, we could never be sure if our phones were listening to us until one of Facebook’s advertising partners confirm the existence of ‘Active Listening.’
As per report, “Active Listening” is a software that uses an artificial intelligence model to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations”.
As per Leak documents, 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.
After from Facebook, Google and Amazon also adopt the same practices and are clients of CMG’s Active Listening service.
A Meta spokesperson also inform that CMG was a general partner, not a partner in the program advertise in the deck.
An Amazon spokesperson also said that they have never work with CMG for ads and have no plans to do it in the future.
As per blog post from CMG November 2023 :
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?”
“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 reveal that it can identify users who are “ready-to-buy” and create target ad lists based on their interests.
