OK, sit down, everyone — we don’t want you falling over and hurting yourself when you learn the news that actually yes, your phone has been listening to your conversations all along. Shocking, we know, but that certainly seems to be what an outfit called Cox Media Group (CMG) does with its “Active Listening” software, according to a leaked slide deck that was used to pitch potential investors. The gist is that the software uses a smartphone’s microphone to listen to conversations and pick out keywords that it feeds to its partners, namely Google, Facebook, and Amazon so that they can target you with directed advertisements. Ever have an IRL conversation about something totally random only to start seeing references to that subject pop up where they never did before? We sure have, and while “relationship mining” seemed like a more parsimonious explanation back in 2017, the state of tech makes eavesdropping far more plausible today. Then there’s the whole thing of basically being caught red-handed. The Big Three all huffed and puffed about how they were shocked, SHOCKED to learn that this was going on, with reactions ranging from outright denial of ever partnering with CMG to quietly severing their relationship with the company. So much for years of gaslighting on this.
