I don’t even know what to say to this. The marketing copy is equal parts comical and distressing in how brazenly they acknowledge the privacy invasion they are claiming to do. I don’t know how they’re supposedly doing this, through what app, and whether Google and Apple are involved. I do hope we get follow up pieces on this story to at least learn how to protect ourselves against this in case there’s a hole in my threat model.
Many people: I think my phone is eavesdropping on me.
Me: No, it’s just that surveillance capitalism is that good at predicting what you may have been talking about.
Cox Media Group, from my phone: Yes, we are eavesdropping on you.
This is definitely concerning, however until we see any evidence of this being used on devices currently on the market, I don’t see a reason to be too worried.
I wonder what their plan on collecting the audio is. Android & IOS have features that tell them when the microphone is active and what app is accessing it, so I can’t imagine people won’t get rid of whatever app that is using their mic 24/7 (unless it’s some sort of rootkit that doesn’t display the mic, which would most likely have legal repercussions)
I don’t see a future (even if lots of extremely popular apps such as TikTok, Reddit, Meta’s apps, Google’s apps, ect. did it) where the majority of people would be ok with 24/7 microphone recordings being collected and sold to advertisers. Even if every major phone OS decided that they would all enable 24/7 mic recording, I would assume that alternative operating systems would become extremely popular.
A marketing team within media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations of consumers through embedded microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices to gather data and use it to target ads
Capability, not actively doing so (although it’s suggestive as all heck, for sure).
I would say ‘worrying, absolutely’, but until we have more information about how/if this is happening, not much we can do beyond normal good practices.
Ars Technica covered it with a little more digging. It seems like this lands more on the side of it being a scam or underwhelming product even from a marketer’s perspective. Seems like a false alarm, which I’ll take to be honest, lol.
Response from Amazon in the article:
Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum told Ars Technica that Active Listening isn’t possible with an Echo device, noting that users can view and delete Alexa voice data sent to the cloud in the Alexa app’s Settings menu (Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History):
Echo devices are designed to only detect your chosen wake word (Alexa, Amazon, Computer, Echo, or Ziggy). No audio is stored or sent to the cloud unless the device detects the wake word. You’ll always know when Alexa is sending your request to the cloud because a blue light indicator will appear or an audio tone will sound on your Echo device.
Amazon’s rep also said it only shares information with third parties “to fulfill customer requests” and does not share voice recordings with third parties.
Response from Google from article:
A Google spokesperon sent Ars the following statement: "For years, Android has prevented apps from collecting audio when they’re not being actively used, and whenever an app activates a device’s microphone, there is a prominent icon displayed in the status bar.”
it’s literally free advertising!