This just blows my mind and makes me feel sick to my stomach that such company’s like CMG Local Solutions do this sort of thing even exist! 🤢🤮
Note: I did not want to use the ‘URL’ field in this post to add a direct link to this company as they use a pixel tracker (see post title). I don not recommend you visit it. Instead, I’ll quote them here:
It’s True. Your Devices Are Listening to You. With Active Listening, CMG can now use voice data to target your advertising to the EXACT people you are looking for.
magine This… What could it do for your business, if you were able to target potential clients or customers who are using terms like this in their day to day conversations:
The car lease ends in a month- we need a plan. We need to get serious about planning for retirement. A mini van would be perfect for us. This AC is on it’s last leg! Do I see mold on the ceiling? We need a better mortgage rate.
Active Listening can make that happen for you! We know this sounds like something from the future, but we are there! We can customize your campaign to listen for any keywords/targets relevant to your business. Here is how we do it:
Create Personas We create buyer personas by uploading past client data into the platform.
Identify Keywords We identify top performing keywords relative to the type of customer you are looking for.
Tracking We set up tracking via pixel placed on your site, so we can track your ROI in real time.
Listening Active Listening begins and is analyzed via AI to detect pertinent conversations via smartphones, smart tvs and other devices.
Analysis As qualified consumers are detected, a 360 analysis via AI on past behaviors of each potential customer occurs.
Create a List With the audience information gathered, an encrypted evergreen audience list is created.
Re-targeting We use the list to target your advertising via many different platforms and tactics including:
- Streaming TV/OTT
- Streaming Audio
- Display Ads
- Paid Social Media
- YouTube
- Mobile Precise
- Google/Bing Search (PPC)
Claim Your Exclusive Territory Before Your Competitor Our technology provides a process that makes it possible to know exactly when someone is in the market for your services in real-time, giving you a significant advantage over your competitors. Territories are available in 10 or 20 mile radiuses, but customizations can be made for regional, state and national coverage.
Here’s the best part! 🤥
We know what you are thinking… Is this legal? YES- it is totally legal for phones and devices to listen to you. That’s because consumers usually give consent when accepting terms and conditions of software updates or app downloads
Is it just me or does the world feel more and more everyday like a dystopian nightmare, a bad joke, satire? Ahhhh!
What’s your thoughts on this?
Don’t really care. It’s not in the devices I use.
Ah yes, toxic individualism
👌
God forbid someone have a choice on privacy and what tech they use.
Ah yes, blaming other end users for “poor choices” instead of Evil Company obviously and openly doing evil things
Ahh yes, the nameless corporation with a nameless product that can’t be named creeping and spitting in the night.
This shit is just spooky bedtime stories for privacy zealots.
So is it willful ignorance on your part then? Or have you some explanation for not paying attention to the myriad avenues of data collection and exploitation for the last fifteen years?
To use a very old example which pales in comparison to things which are possible now, here’s a story from 2012 wherein Target’s marketing efforts outed a pregnant teenager to her family with targeted coupons. Luckily her family was supportive in this case, however it’s not hard to imagine real harm being done if the circumstances were different.
So to bring this to a slightly more relevant topic for 2023: are you really okay with mass surveillance being used to uncover and prosecute women who have been forced to travel out of states with abortion bans to seek lifesaving medical care? Just because you don’t have to worry about it personally?
This is just one of many, many examples of the abuse of data collection in the modern day. Before you try and discard this post as an alleged strawman (or some shit) I encourage you to actually open your eyes and look, because these entities are not nameless, many of them are household names. Your “spooky bedtime stories” argument is an absolute farce and I honestly would prefer you to be trolling than genuinely this ignorant.
Don’t feed the troll.
Eh. Gotta let them dig the hole long enough to eliminate all doubt, plus pushing back on their nonsense is potentially valuable to third party readers later. Thanks for looking out, though.
I had the “pleasure” before and recognized the name.
Holy shit, you pull in a massive edge case from 10+ years ago that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Thank you for really driving home that you can’t name a consumer device that uses this tech.
Thanks for removing all doubt that you are just here to troll. I wish you luck finding a more productive way to spend your time IRL.
Still can’t name a consumer product?
Do you think other people deserve this?
People are capable of making their own choice in privacy and tech. Nobody is forcing any of this in homes.
What if they don’t have time? What if they don’t want to read a 10 page EULA? It is their choice, but they most likely don’t know what they are accepting. You know what this means therefore you have the power to do something against this (if it is reasonable).
And yet, I’ve been able to do such a thing despite not having read a single tos. Not a lot of common technology uses this shit. It’s incredibly easy.
Frankly, they often really fucking aren’t, which is why consumer protection laws are supposed to exist.
Note the weasel-words “in homes.” That’s because they are forcing it literally everywhere else.
Children of privacy-oblivious parents are still having it forced on them in their homes.