Privacy

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Marketing Company Claims That It Actually Is Listening to Your Phone and Smart Speakers to Target Ads (www.404media.co)

submitted 11 months ago by minnix@lemux.minnix.dev to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

the phone's processor has the wake up word hardcoded, so it's not like an ad company can add a new one on a whim. and it uses passive listening, so it's not recording everything you say - I've seen it compared to sitting in a class and not paying attention until the teacher says your name.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's no way that an app with mic permissions could basically do the same thing and pick up on certain preprogrammed words like Ford or Coke which could then be parsed by AI and used by advertisers? It certainly seems like that isn't out of the realm of physical possibility but I'm definitely no expert. Would they have had to pay the OS maker to hardcode it in to the OS? Could that be done in an update at a later time?

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

There's no way that an app with mic permissions could basically do the same thing and pick up on certain preprogrammed words like Ford or Coke which could then be parsed by AI and used by advertisers?

only if you want the phone to start burning battery and data while displaying the "microphone in use" indicator all the time.

not to mention that the specific phrases have been picked in order to cause as few false positives as possible (which is why you can't change them yourself), and you can still fool Google Assistant by saying "hey booboo" or "okay boomer". good luck with making it reliably recognize "Ford", lol.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 months ago

Huh, TIL. I figured "if they can do it with one thing they could do it with more than one thing."