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And the current pitch-deck piece, also from 404:
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-list...>
(That's the original, but paywalled, source for this story. As it's hard-paywalled, the TechDirt submission is appropriate.)
This really just reads like an idiot misunderstanding and/or bullshitting about what might be theoretically possible, but isn't actually happening.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
But ya know…
I know they arnt, at least I believe they arnt listening.
But sure as hell feels like it sometimes!
Still I’m smart enough and knowledgable enough to know that combined signals used to target and my own confirmation bias can make it seem like we are being listened to.
We can sometimes talk about something and then literally see an Ad for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
> And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too damaging... Would it really, or is your comment the response to them already having been caught? How would we really know the difference if nobody wants to beleive it? This is exactly how things were before Snowden. Your argument begs the question, in other words.
I’m not sure it would be damaging.
Off the top of my head, Tesla employees were viewing internal cameras.
And I’m pretty sure Facebook employees used to be able to read private messages and jokes/bragged about it?
Nothing happens to these people, unless they step out of the US that is…
This really just reads like an idiot misunderstanding and/or bullshitting about what might be theoretically possible, but isn't actually happening.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
This really just reads like an idiot misunderstanding and/or bullshitting about what might be theoretically possible, but isn't actually happening.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
That services like Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Assistant etc. exist with 24x7 listening devices shows that cost is no longer a hurdle in deploying this at scale. And note that they do not have to upload the audio files (which by the way, they can - I remember Google showcasing an audio codec - https://github.com/google/lyra - that is suitable for very low bandwidth, so neither bandwidth nor storage is a big issue today). Today's phones also have enough power to transcribe the audio on device itself (e.g. Google Live Transcribe feature now works when offline - https://9to5google.com/2022/03/10/google-live-transcribe-fea... ). Why do you think there is a sudden push now to put AI on SoCs and thus on device? It's partly because BigTech want to offload more and more processing on to your device. We are at a stage where hardware has outpaced system software development and is actually underutilised.
(And we are also at the techno-cultural cusp where the ownership of most of our devices are questionable, and moving towards a dystopian future where we will no longer be able to claim rights on these computing devices).
This really just reads like an idiot misunderstanding and/or bullshitting about what might be theoretically possible, but isn't actually happening.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
These days you could easily run Whisper locally on each cable box and report back whatever information advertisers will pay for. It will run a bit hot, but what do they care if they waste your electricity.
Disney recently argued that its TOS for a Disney Channel free trial subscription could be used to force the husband of a woman who died from anaphylactic shock after her allergy diet requirements were mocked and disregarded by staff at a Disney restaurant because he signed it and it included a forced arbitration clause.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/15/disney-....
So, if you've given apps permission to use your mic, their lawyers may be telling them it's legal to use them at any time for any purpose.
For a contract to be binding, there is supposed to be a meeting of the minds, a shared understanding between the parties of what is being agreed to. Their argument is you signed the 50 page contract, so you knew.
If that doesn't sound right to you, talk to your congress person.
In the U.S., it's definitely illegal to listen in in any environment where there's an expectation of privacy. Disney recently argued that its TOS for a Disney Channel free trial subscription could be used to force the husband of a woman who died from anaphylactic shock after her allergy diet requirements were mocked and disregarded by staff at a Disney restaurant because he signed it and it included a forced arbitrat…
I share the author's skepticism that Cox would have ever been capable of this. Especially not at the scale that was claimed in the deleted B2B marketing materials. While there are reasonable concerns over access to microphones in various devices found in consumer's households, especially cheap IoT devices (although, I'm EXTREMELY about claims that any agent is listening to unfettered microphone access on smartphones,…
You're getting too far into the weeds with the IOT and smartphones. TFA talks about mics in the cable boxes and smart tvs. I wouldn't put it past them to monitor mics in cable boxes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, some people believe Facebook listens to their conversations and use them for ad targeting, in theory it's possible, but in practice it would mean needing to upload billions of audio files (how many conversations happen in average day near how many phones with active FB/IG accounts on them) and having the computing power to transcribe them. And even if they had the resources, being caught doing it would be too d…
Well there are strange cases when we talked with a friend about something and then suddenly the algorithm decided to push content or ads that are related to the topic. While we didn't search stuff on the topic.