Have you ever felt like your phone was eavesdropping on your conversations, serving up eerily relevant ads shortly after discussing a particular product or topic? While suspicions of such practices have long circulated, we now have concrete evidence from a Facebook partner company.
A recent report has shed light on a controversial advertising technology known as “Active Listening.” This software, developed by one of Facebook’s marketing partners, utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze users’ conversations in real-time, extracting valuable “intent data” for targeted advertising.
The report cites leaked documents, including a pitch deck from Cox Media Group (CMG), a prominent television and radio conglomerate. The deck explicitly states that “advertisers can pair this voice data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers.” This revelation confirms long-held fears about the extent to which personal data, including our spoken words, is being collected and exploited for commercial gain.
