One of Facebook's alleged marketing partners explained how it listens to users' smartphone microphones and advertises to them accordingly.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2504023

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The original article is behind a paywall at 404media.

In a pitch deck to prospective customers, one of Facebook’s alleged marketing partners explained how it listens to users’ smartphone microphones and advertises to them accordingly.

As 404 Media reports based on documents leaked to its reporters, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its so-called “Active Listening” software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations.”

“Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers,” the deck continues.

In the same slideshow, CMG counted Facebook, Google, and Amazon as clients of its “Active Listening” service. After 404 reached out to Google about its partnership, the tech giant removed the media group from the site for its “Partners Program,” which prompted Meta, the owner of Facebook, to admit that it is reviewing CMG to see if it violates any of its terms of service.

An Amazon spokesperson, meanwhile, told 404 that its Ads arm "has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so. The spox added, confusingly, that if one of its marketing partners violates its rules, the company will take action.

  • @NarrativeBear@lemmy.world
    27•4 months ago

    Its creepy as hell when you are having a conversation with your SO in the car about [insert random products here], and then in about a hour when you open your phones or laptops at home you are bombarded with ads for said product’s.

    This happeneds all the time. Try talking about getting a new top load washing machine and mention it three times within ten minutes. Or try talking about getting a new lawnmower, but the trick is to say it three times within ten minutes or so.