Marketer to pay $880K settlement over device-tapping ad claims
▼ Summary
– Cox Media Group (CMG) advertised an “Active Listening” service claiming to use voice data from smart devices to target ads.
– The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined CMG $880,000 for falsely claiming the service captured conversations and used voice data.
– The FTC found that CMG’s service did not listen to conversations or use voice data, but instead resold email lists from other data brokers.
– Two marketing firms, 1010 Digital Works LLC and MindSift LLC, each paid $25,000 settlements for their involvement with CMG.
– CMG admitted to Ars that it did not listen to conversations, only using a third-party aggregated, anonymized, and encrypted data set for ad placement.
In November 2023, alarm bells rang when marketing firm Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions promoted a service called Active Listening, claiming it could tap into “voice data” from smartphones and smart TVs to target ads. The company’s website boldly declared, “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you,” sparking widespread concern and media coverage. 404 Media, which first flagged the claims, wrote that the idea of devices eavesdropping for marketing “may finally be a reality.”
The panic was understandable. A since-deleted CMG blog post from November 2023, still accessible via the Wayback Machine, described using AI to “detect relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices” in real time. But from the start, the claims seemed far-fetched. CMG never explained how it could remotely commandeer users’ devices to capture and transmit voice recordings in real time, or gain more intimate access to homes than law enforcement could without a warrant.
This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that CMG will pay $880,000 to settle allegations that it “falsely” marketed Active Listening as an AI-powered service capable of targeting ads based on conversations captured from smart devices, and that consumers had opted into such targeting. The settlement money will go to affected customers, the FTC confirmed.
According to the FTC’s complaint, Active Listening did not actually listen to conversations or use voice data at all. Nor did it accurately place ads in customers’ desired locations. Instead, CMG’s service simply resold email lists obtained from other data brokers,at a significant markup. Two other marketing firms, 1010 Digital Works LLC and MindSift LLC, will each pay $25,000 settlements for their roles.
In its 2023 blog, CMG claimed Active Listening relied on an unnamed partner with a “growing ability to access microphone data on devices.” But when Ars covered the story, a CMG spokesperson admitted the company did 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.” The FTC’s action now confirms what many suspected: the claims were not just alarming,they were false.
(Source: Ars Technica)
