Technology

59161 readers

2096 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

500

Google & Facebook partner admits it can listen to device microphone to serve ads - Dexerto (www.dexerto.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A media firm that has worked with the likes of Google and Meta has admitted that it can target adverts based on what you said out loud near device microphones.

Media conglomerate Cox Media Group (CMG) has been pitching tech companies on a new targeted advertising tool that uses audio recordings collected from smart home devices, according to a 404 Media investigation. The company is partners with Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing.

In a pitch deck presented to Google, Facebook, and others in November 2023, CMG referred to the technology used for monitoring and active listening as “Voice Data.” The firm also mentioned using artificial intelligence to collect data about consumers’ online behavior.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If a device can start listening when you say, "Hey Siri," it can also start listening when you say other words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Let me ask, do you understand how the wake word chip works? Or are you just imagining an absurd edge case where a researcher some how gaps the bridged chips while having the device in person?

What do you believe is a viable attack vector that somehow nobody knows about?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Have you read the source code for the programming for those chips? Do you know exactly how they work?

Voice recognition is highly subjective, and some of you actually trust billionaire's companies enough to take their word that their devices will only listen for certain special words? Ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

So far, nobody has proven that any major phone apps are constantly listening and sending that data somewhere. That would be huge news if it ever happened.

For voice assistants, they're tuned to listen specifically for wake words like "hey Siri".