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Google & Facebook partner admits it can listen to device microphone to serve ads - Dexerto (www.dexerto.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A media firm that has worked with the likes of Google and Meta has admitted that it can target adverts based on what you said out loud near device microphones.

Media conglomerate Cox Media Group (CMG) has been pitching tech companies on a new targeted advertising tool that uses audio recordings collected from smart home devices, according to a 404 Media investigation. The company is partners with Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing.

In a pitch deck presented to Google, Facebook, and others in November 2023, CMG referred to the technology used for monitoring and active listening as “Voice Data.” The firm also mentioned using artificial intelligence to collect data about consumers’ online behavior.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

I'd pay if they actually offered a better service. But they don't, so I use alternatives that do:

Grayjay - sub to more than just YouTube, downloading works as expected, etc
Nebula - smaller selection of content, but downloading works as expected

Both of those offer a better experience than YouTube premium (in terms of app features). If YouTube offered a higher quality experience, I'd be more interested in paying for it.

So, I instead just donate to/buy merch from creators I really appreciate and avoid the YouTube app. The only reason Google is involved is because of the network effect, not because they actually provide a good service, so I don't feel bad cheating them out of their ad revenue.

I bailed on Netflix and Disney+, but I refuse to torrent, so I rip DVDs and Blurays to my Jellyfin instance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I am concerned about the trend of "ripping disks instead of just downloading" because it's either wasteful (throwing out a perfectly good disk feels wrong) or take up unnecessary space. Plus, this is not universal because relatively obscure media may be out of print and thus scarce. So if I were paying for my media and it was not available DRMless, I would do like how I did with Steam games - buy and then download a corresponding DRMless copy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I agree. I have a few personal rules regarding piracy, and it's essentially if it's unreasonable to get a legal copy from the original vendor (and buying DVDs/Blurays is reasonable), then I have no problem pirating it. Just because something is technically available used isn't enough, my legal consumption of the content needs to reward the original creator for me to consider piracy immoral. I care a lot less about copyright terms than actual availability on the market.

So I buy DVDs and Blurays to populate my library because that seems to be the only way for me to get a legitimate copy to extract a DRM-free version from. I do that for all media, like video games (i.e. if I can't find a given game for sale, I don't have any qualms pirating it).

And yeah, the space is pretty wasteful, but it's honestly not that bad. I have plenty of storage space at home to store a bunch of disks, and I can always discard the cases and store the disks in a binder or something if space becomes an issue. But it's not a complete waste, because I have the option of lending the physical media to someone else, which is nice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for explaining your point of view! Would you consider reselling those if the space becomes an issue?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, but I'd probably delete the media if I do. If it stops being sold, I'd feel justified in pirating.

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