FTC to Require Cox Media Group, Two Other Firms to Pay Nearly $1 Million to Settle Charges They Deceived Customers About “Active Listening” AI-Powered Marketing Service
FTC обязала Cox Media Group, MindSift и 1010 Digital Works выплатить почти 1 миллион долларов в рамках урегулирования обвинений в обмане клиентов относительно сервиса маркетинга «Active Listening» на базе ИИ. Компании утверждали, что умные устройства в реальном времени прослушивают разговоры потребителей для таргетинга рекламы. По данным FTC, сервис на самом деле не прослушивал разговоры и не использовал голосовые данные — вместо этого компании перепродавали с большой наценкой списки email-адресов, полученные у других дата-брокеров. Саймон Уиллисон писал об этой истории ещё в сентябре 2024 года и предполагал, что «active listening» было лишь маркетинговой обёрткой для обычного таргетинга. Он отмечает, что развенчание мифа о слежке через микрофоны смартфонов — его самое неблагодарное онлайн-хобби, и пресс-релиз FTC стал новым аргументом в этом споре.
22nd May 2026 - Link Blog
FTC to Require Cox Media Group, Two Other Firms to Pay Nearly $1 Million to Settle Charges They Deceived Customers About “Active Listening” AI-Powered Marketing Service (via) Back in 2024 Cox Media Group were caught trying to sell advertisers packages based on "active listening", with this deck which claimed:
- Smart devices capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations
- Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers
I wrote about this in September 2024. My theory:
I think active listening is the term that the team came up with for “something that sounds fancy but really just means the way ad targeting platforms work already”. Then they got over-excited about the new metaphor and added that first couple of slides that talk about “voice data”, without really understanding how the tech works or what kind of a shitstorm that could kick off when people who DID understand technology started paying attention to their marketing.
This FTC press release appears to confirm that's pretty much what happened:
CMG, MindSift and 1010 Digital Works claimed their “Active Listening” branded marketing service listened in on consumers’ conversations overheard by smart devices, in real time, to target advertising [...]
According to the complaints, this service did not, in fact, listen in on consumers’ conversations or use voice data at all—nor did the service accurately place ads in customers’ desired locations. Instead, the service the companies provided consisted of reselling—at a significant markup—email lists obtained from other data brokers.
Attempting to myth bust the conspiracy theory that our mobile devices target ads to us based on spying through the microphones continues to be my least rewarding niche online hobby. It's nice to have a new piece of ammunition.
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This is a link post by Simon Willison, posted on 22nd May 2026.
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