Cox Media Group (CMG), a leading US marketing company, has recently come under fire for reportedly admitting to monitoring conversations for targeted advertising. The agency, which works with renowned brands such as CBS, Fox News and ESPN, has been actively pitching their “Active Listening” feature to advertisers, with a CMG rep spotted on LinkedIn promoting the service.
Industry experts have already expressed their concerns, with Glenn Gabe, an SEO consultant, tweeting “This will not end well”, and Google Ads expert, Steve Huskey, branding it a “textbook definition of invasion of privacy”.
This has raised questions over consumer privacy rights, especially as 98% of US smart device users have opted to use voice-activated devices and apps, despite increasing suspicion. Apple and Google have both since ended the practice of listening to recordings made by these devices.
When questioned about this service, a CMG spokesperson told MarTech that they do not listen to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymised and fully encrypted data set, which can be used for ad placement.
Google also responded to the allegations, saying that Android has been preventing apps from collecting audio when they’re not being actively used for years, and that whenever an app activates a device’s microphone, there is a prominent icon displayed in the status bar.
It remains to be seen how this will affect CMG’s reputation, as well as the wider industry. What is clear, however, is that consumer privacy has become increasingly important in recent years, and companies must be aware of this when pitching advertising services.
Originally reported by Martech: https://martech.org/marketing-giant-admits-it-listens-to-your-conversations-to-sell-targeted-ads/
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