Tested this a while back, had me and my gf talk about kids like where going to have one and all that but never got any baby products before and never typed or asked any electronics about anything related to it.
Within like a few days we started getting ads for babies and expecting parents.
It’s solid proof there always hearing us.
It’s solid proof there always hearing us.
there was actually a study performed a few years ago that didn’t find any evidence for several thousand tested apps to listen on you (some of the scummy ones were caught recording screens, on the other hand). also, the company mentioned in the posted article admits that their claims were exaggerated.
It’s a solid anecdote, for sure.
Absolutely not “proof” though. Unless you made absolutely sure to not accidentally look at a photo on social media of a baby for too long, or scrolled too slowly past a YouTube reel aimed at kids, or listened to a baby shark trap remix on Spotify.
We have LLM models that can give you (mostly) accurate data on how to do a given task based purely on their ability to guess which word comes next from the sources being fed to it, and you don’t think algorithms exist to extrapolate your potential buying habits based on the aforementioned data points?
I’ve gotten very specific targeted ads before that were completely wrong, just because I’d watched like one YouTube video about the hobby or something. It’s really just a prediction algorithm based on the troves of data our use of digital devices gives them.
Or happened to be in the same place as someone who is looking up this type of thing (for example coworkers, or patrons of a park you visit often.)
In reality, the other data that can be gathered is more useful and easier to work with than trying to parse audio and video all the time.
Uh dude, your girlfriend is pregnant
A popular podcast in brazil called Brainstorm9 did the “bowl experiment”, where everyone of the members talked about wanting to buy a bowl but only using their voice, they all started receiving ads for bowls, and I bet you never received a bowl ad since it’s not a thing people often search for online.
I know people say they there are studies, etc, but I agree with you. My husband and I both don’t like Taco Bell. There were zero searches for it, we never talked about it, etc. So we decided to test it. We started saying Taco Bell multiple times in different sentences.
Guess what suggested options popped up when we hit “T” into google or maps? Yup. Taco Bell
Definitely not because most people use Maps for locating a restaurant, which most likely you do as well. Not because taco bell is the most common restaurant that begins with “T.”
Nothing about these comments even hints at establishing the controls necessary to get accurate data on your phone mic spying on you. It’s all anecdotal and based on the knowledge about what information apps are able to scrape, seems like none of you guys really understand what they have access to.
I just press ‘T’ into google maps and Taco Bell is on there. I haven’t been there in years nor can I recall even talking about it in a very long time.
Good breakdown on this in arstechnica:
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991469
In a statement emailed to Ars Technica, Cox Media Group said that its advertising tools include “third-party vendor products powered by data sets sourced from users by various social media and other applications then packaged and resold to data servicers.” The statement continues:
Advertising data based on voice and other data is collected by these platforms and devices under the terms and conditions provided by those apps and accepted by their users, and can then be sold to third-party companies and converted into anonymized information for advertisers. This anonymized data then is resold by numerous advertising companies.
The company added that it does not “listen to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymized and fully encrypted data set that can be used for ad placement” and “regret[s] any confusion.”
Just like apps aren’t accessing your camera, but Zuckerberg that owns the second biggest ad company in the world, tapes his notebook camera.
My sister snd I had a conversation in a terrace about flower seeds to gift my mother. Neither has google assitant or any other voice search app acrivated. We both started getting seed ads. Pretty damning
It’s rather Orwellian to me that this kind of logic counts as justification.
It’s not justification, it’s about understanding the semantics of what’s technically happening.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But a marketing company called CMG Local Solutions sparked panic recently by alluding that it has access to people’s private conversations by tapping into data gathered by the microphones on their phones, TVs, and other personal electronics, as first reported by 404 Media on Thursday.
A November 28 blog post described Active Listening technology as using AI to “detect relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.”
This is a world where no pre-purchase murmurs go unanalyzed, and the whispers of consumers become a tool for you to target, retarget, and conquer your local market.
The website previously pointed to CMG uploading past client data into its platform to make “buyer personas.”
The archived version of the page discussed an AI-based analysis of the data and generating an “encrypted evergreen audience list” used to re-target ads on various platforms, including streaming TV and audio, display ads, paid social media, YouTube, Google, and Bing Search.
Before Cox Media Group sent its statement, though, CMG’s claims of collecting data on “casual conversations in real-time,” as its blog stated, were questionable.
The original article contains 711 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
