Marketers are listening to your phone conversations, leaked docs suggest

A leaked sales presentation from a marketing company appears to show that marketers are listening to users through their phones for ad targeting, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

Marketers ‘pair this voice data with behavioral data’

Cox Media Group (CMG) has billed itself as a media partner to Amazon, Google, and Facebook. In its pitch deck, originally obtained by 404 Media, CMG revealed that it captures voice data from smartphones and employs AI technology to analyze what users intend to buy.

“Smart devices capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations,” one slide read. “Advertisers can pair this voice data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers. We use AI to collect this data from 470+ sources to improve campaign deployment, targeting and performance.”

In another slide, the company again explained how it uses a combination of voice data and behavioral data to identify “ready-to-buy” audiences. 

“We take this data, and align it with your products and services, to build an audience list in a defined 10-mile radius. This audience list is uploaded into our ad platforms to target your digital advertising. Once launched, the technology automatically analyzes your site traffic and customers to fuel audience targeting on an ongoing basis.”

Is it legal?

In November 2023, CMG asserted that actively listening to potential customers through their phones is legal.

“We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal? The short answer is: yes,” the company said in a since-deleted blog post. “It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page terms of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.”

Although CMG deleted the post, other tech companies like Norton have confirmed that users grant permission to companies to eavesdrop on their conversations when they agree to the terms and conditions in software updates and app downloads.

Tech giants deny using CMG’s Active Listening program

CMG has since been disavowed by its giant tech partners, with Amazon saying it “has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.” Google confirmed that it had worked with CMG but dropped the company as a partner due to privacy violations.

“All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action,” the tech giant said.

Like Amazon, Meta put out a statement that suggested it does work with CMG but not on its Active Listening program.

“We don’t have any comment,” the Facebook owner said. “But just to clarify, the pitch deck in the article lists Meta as a general marketing partner, not as a partner in this program.”