How about a pitch deck for a company [1] claiming it can offer microphone eavesdropping based ad targeting [2]? Maybe that was still aspirational though.
TVs and cars have microphones now and are privacy nightmares. Car companies have patents [3] for in-car keyword based ad targeting. Without legalisation, it's really only a matter of time.
> How about a pitch deck for a company [1] claiming it can offer microphone eavesdropping based ad targeting [2]? Maybe that was still aspirational though.
What companies claim they can do when they try to sell their shit product at a ridiculous price is a very different thing from what they can do.
Amazon Shopping was also supposedly a leap forward for shopping. Turns out it was just a guy watching a camera (we were told it was all automatic with state of the art object recognition tech).
Cellerite is another incredible example of this that places like reddit and HN love to suck off. They are the be all and end all until you read their actual technical papers (which companies and police forces that purchase from them do NOT do) and their very strict limitations (which they don't hide in their manuals, they just don't include any of that in their lovely powerpoints).
I think it's still aspirational. If it was as wide spread as people think, someone would have shown a packet capture or an whistleblower would have come forward.
That said, I full agree that unless we legislate it, it will happen eventually.
I trust that the pitch deck is accurate, but I also have no idea the extent of its use or if it was even used.
Has anyone done a public low-level analysis of these systems with questions like, where the data goes, the quality of the stream, how the data is then used/abused, etc?
Go to a public library without any electronic devices and pick up a print copy of a magazine with some ranked list of products or brands. Select a handful that you don't think would be targeted towards you. For example, beauty products, childcare products, cruises marketed towards seniors, etc.
Over the course of a few weeks, use Siri to send text messages mentioning these brands, add them to your Reminders list, etc. Just don't allow it to redirect you to any apps or web searches, since that would invalidate the experiment.
Browse Apple News daily, which uses Apple's internal ad service. If you see any ads related to at least 2 of your canary brands, you have plausible evidence that your Siri interactions have been used for ad targeting.
Show me some sniffed network traffic demonstrating an app sending that data back to a server.
Discovery in a lawsuit.
Credible insider leaks confirming this happens and how.
How about a pitch deck for a company [1] claiming it can offer microphone eavesdropping based ad targeting [2]? Maybe that was still aspirational though.
TVs and cars have microphones now and are privacy nightmares. Car companies have patents [3] for in-car keyword based ad targeting. Without legalisation, it's really only a matter of time.
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90999277/cox-cmg-active-listenin...
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-list...
[2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24224884-how-voice-d...
[3] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ford-patents-in-car-advertising-s...
> How about a pitch deck for a company [1] claiming it can offer microphone eavesdropping based ad targeting [2]? Maybe that was still aspirational though.
What companies claim they can do when they try to sell their shit product at a ridiculous price is a very different thing from what they can do.
Amazon Shopping was also supposedly a leap forward for shopping. Turns out it was just a guy watching a camera (we were told it was all automatic with state of the art object recognition tech).
Cellerite is another incredible example of this that places like reddit and HN love to suck off. They are the be all and end all until you read their actual technical papers (which companies and police forces that purchase from them do NOT do) and their very strict limitations (which they don't hide in their manuals, they just don't include any of that in their lovely powerpoints).
I think it's still aspirational. If it was as wide spread as people think, someone would have shown a packet capture or an whistleblower would have come forward.
That said, I full agree that unless we legislate it, it will happen eventually.
I posted about that one on lobste.rs a while ago: https://lobste.rs/s/mf7guc/leak_facebook_partner_brags_about...
I'm confident it was a sales team putting together a dishonest pitch deck that deliberately took advantage of this widespread conspiracy theory.
Cox Media Group selling a product that uses captured audio to target ads https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-list...
I trust that the pitch deck is accurate, but I also have no idea the extent of its use or if it was even used.
Has anyone done a public low-level analysis of these systems with questions like, where the data goes, the quality of the stream, how the data is then used/abused, etc?
How about Apple paying 95 million dollars in fines for it? https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/02/business/apple-siri-priva...
Most of the post is disputing the point you're making. Did you read it?
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Here's what I would accept:
Go to a public library without any electronic devices and pick up a print copy of a magazine with some ranked list of products or brands. Select a handful that you don't think would be targeted towards you. For example, beauty products, childcare products, cruises marketed towards seniors, etc.
Over the course of a few weeks, use Siri to send text messages mentioning these brands, add them to your Reminders list, etc. Just don't allow it to redirect you to any apps or web searches, since that would invalidate the experiment.
Browse Apple News daily, which uses Apple's internal ad service. If you see any ads related to at least 2 of your canary brands, you have plausible evidence that your Siri interactions have been used for ad targeting.
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