Don’t they all. They have to record it to be able to complete the demand. We know google listens to us as it serves up ads that we haven’t searches. Same for every listening device.
I forget but sane smart fridge got in trouble for recording conversations and having backlogs of data. Anything with a mic is likely recording data and sending it to analyst.
While I wouldn’t put it past any company to do this, the theory is that you have a “wake word” that is listened for locally (ie, “Hey Google” etc).
Then, once that triggers locally, then any audio after that point is recorded and delivered to our corporate overlords.That said, how well this works in practice, or how different companies handle this may vary.
Aside from situations involving false positive detections of wake words, there aren’t other situations in which these devices are “listening”. Watchdog groups have been eyeing these devices for years now, and there haven’t been any confirmed cases of these things spying on their owners.
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Hm
if you actually read the article, you’ll find out that the company admitted that they actually don’t do that and they’ve exaggerated their claims.
That’s what you call Damage Control. They are backpedaling after saying the quiet part out loud.
No, they were lying because it would increase their value as a marketer for their clients. It was really stupid to lie about something so easily disproven. Anyone with a packet sniffer can tell there’s not a bunch of random audio being transmitted from their device for no reason. I’m more inclined to believe some idiot in their PR team just doesn’t know wtf they’re talking about and made up something on the spot.
Actually it would be very possible to do if you transcribe the eavesdropped audio into text, as the built-in voice assistants already do on the fly. Small packets containing text could be indistinguishable from a variety of other excessive telemetry that the various apps and system services send out to their motherships in the name of providing a better user experience.
I can’t help but wonder why you people are always so quick to dismiss the reality of audio data collection when there are so many ways it could be done and so much evidence that it is happening. Are you stuck in a mode of cognitive dissonance that won’t let you distrust your devices, because you WANT to trust them with your privacy?
Maybe don’t buy into conspiracies so easily. At least get some evidence first
I have observed quite a lot of evidence myself already.
Marketers would literally kill for this kind of tech, especially in real time, but it doesn’t exist quite yet.
What they CAN do with existing tech is scary enough (11, almost 12 years ago now):
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!
Doesn’t surprise me. Marketers are always wanting to know how much we would recommend x product to a friend or family. Like I just organically discuss x in this way.
Lol again? Ok:
“guys google assistant isn’t always listening lol it only wakes up on the trigger word. you people know nothing about IT or how good marketers are at guessing” -10,000,000 neckbeards for the last decade, despite everyone’s obvious anecdotal experiences that are just too bullshit to ignore.
Did it really take them admitting it for a publication to talk about it?
This exact post did quite poorly a few days ago. Let’s see how it does with this article.
despite everyone’s obvious anecdotal experiences that are just too bullshit to ignore.
I spent a month with my wife talking about cat food whenever we would remember to. Never got an ad for cat stuff.
Also one time I was thinking about traveling to the Caribbean, and I got an ad for the Caribbean. Do you think they were reading my thoughts?
It’s a type of bias where you notice when something does happen, but not when it doesn’t. Have you ever thought about the hundreds of things you talk about every day that you haven’t gotten an ad for?
They don’t need to listen to your convos. Obviously they would love to but it’s far too risky, but the information Google has is plenty to make pretty decent guesses as to what you have been recently exposed to and (subsequently) may have spoken about.
But you’ve already poisoned the well (another logical fallacy) and labelled any dissent as coming from neck beards, so it can be safely ignored. Good for you.
I think a lot of the time people will get ads for things like a Caribbean cruise and think it’s a spying conspiracy because they forgot that they accidentally clicked an ad link from Google for a Chase travel credit card a couple days ago when they were trying to log into their bank account to check their balance. People forget about inconsequential events like that, but that’s where most of your data is really harvested.
