Marketer that claimed it could tap devices for ad targeting will pay $880K settlement
Marketer that claimed it could tap devices for ad targeting will pay $880K settlement
声称能通过监听设备进行广告投放的营销公司将支付 88 万美元和解金
In November 2023, we reported on dubious claims made by marketing firm Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions. The company advertised a service called Active Listening on a website that said, “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you” and claimed it could use “voice data” to help advertisers target ads to specific people. Naturally, panic ensued. 404 Media, which initially spotted the website, for instance, wrote that the idea of smartphones listening to people to sell products “may finally be a reality.”
2023 年 11 月，我们报道了营销公司 Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions 所做出的可疑声明。该公司在其网站上宣传一项名为“主动监听”（Active Listening）的服务，声称：“这是真的。你的设备正在监听你”，并称其可以利用“语音数据”帮助广告商向特定人群投放广告。不出所料，这引发了恐慌。例如，最初发现该网站的 404 Media 写道，智能手机通过监听用户来推销产品的想法“可能终于成为了现实”。
The idea of a marketing firm using AI to “detect relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices” in real time—according to a since-deleted CMG blog post from November 2023 (still viewable via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine)—has raised alarms. But it was also apparent that CMG’s claims were unlikely to be true. The company never explained how it could remotely extract enough computing and networking power from users’ devices to clandestinely capture and send voice recordings in “real-time” or obtain more intimate access to people’s homes than law enforcement can without a warrant.
根据 CMG 2023 年 11 月发布的一篇现已被删除的博客文章（仍可通过互联网档案馆的 Wayback Machine 查看），一家营销公司利用人工智能实时“通过智能手机、智能电视和其他设备检测相关对话”的想法引起了警觉。但显而易见，CMG 的说法不太可能是真的。该公司从未解释过它是如何从用户设备中远程提取足够的计算和网络能力，以“实时”秘密捕获并发送语音录音的，也未解释它是如何获得比执法部门在没有搜查令的情况下更深入的家庭访问权限的。
This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that CMG will pay $880,000 to settle the FTC’s allegations that CMG “falsely” claimed “to offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers’ smart devices and that consumers had opted into such targeting.” The money will go to affected customers, the FTC said.
本周，美国联邦贸易委员会 (FTC) 宣布，CMG 将支付 88 万美元，以就 FTC 的指控达成和解。FTC 指控 CMG “虚假”声称“提供一种人工智能驱动的服务，可以根据从消费者智能设备捕获的对话进行本地化广告投放，并声称消费者已选择加入此类定位服务”。FTC 表示，这笔资金将赔偿给受影响的客户。
The FTC’s announcement reads: According to the [FTC-filed] 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. After working with CMG, two marketing firms, Wisconsin-based 1010 Digital Works LLC and New Hampshire-based MindSift LLC, will each pay $25,000 settlements.
FTC 的公告写道：根据（FTC 提交的）投诉，该服务实际上根本没有监听消费者的对话，也没有使用任何语音数据，该服务也没有准确地将广告投放到客户期望的位置。相反，这些公司提供的服务仅仅是高价转售从其他数据经纪人那里获得的电子邮件列表。在与 CMG 合作后，两家营销公司——位于威斯康星州的 1010 Digital Works LLC 和位于新罕布什尔州的 MindSift LLC——将分别支付 2.5 万美元的和解金。
In its since-deleted blog from 2023, CMG claimed that Active Listening relied on an unnamed CMG partner that had a “growing ability to access microphone data on devices.” But when we first covered Active Listening, a company spokesperson admitted to Ars that CMG did not “listen to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymized, and fully encrypted data set that can be used for ad placement.”
在 2023 年那篇现已被删除的博客中，CMG 声称“主动监听”依赖于一位未具名的 CMG 合作伙伴，该合作伙伴拥有“日益增长的访问设备麦克风数据的能力”。但当我们首次报道“主动监听”时，该公司发言人向 Ars 承认，CMG 并没有“监听任何对话，也没有访问除第三方聚合、匿名且完全加密的数据集之外的任何内容，这些数据仅用于广告投放”。
The FTC said that CMG, 1010 Digital Works, and MindSift marketed Active Listening to small businesses and falsely claimed that the service would help the businesses target customers in specific geographies. “It is a basic rule of business that you need to be honest with your customers, and these companies failed to do that,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in an accompanying statement.
FTC 表示，CMG、1010 Digital Works 和 MindSift 向小型企业推销“主动监听”服务，并虚假声称该服务将帮助企业在特定地理区域定位客户。FTC 消费者保护局局长 Christopher Mufarrige 在随附的声明中表示：“对客户诚实是商业的基本准则，而这些公司未能做到这一点。”
According to the FTC, the marketing companies also claimed that advertising targets opted into Active Listening by agreeing to third-party apps’ terms of service but that this was also not true. Even if Active Listening worked as CMG, 1010 Digital Works, and MindSift claimed, the FTC would still take issue with it, the government agency said: If the Active Listening service had functioned as advertised, this collection and use of consumers’ voice data without adequate consent would itself violate Section 5 of the FTC Act.
据 FTC 称，这些营销公司还声称，广告目标对象是通过同意第三方应用程序的服务条款而选择加入“主动监听”的，但这也不是事实。该政府机构表示，即使“主动监听”真的像 CMG、1010 Digital Works 和 MindSift 所声称的那样运作，FTC 仍然会对其提出异议：如果“主动监听”服务确实按广告宣传的那样运作，这种在没有充分同意的情况下收集和使用消费者语音数据的行为本身就违反了《FTC 法案》第 5 条。
The FTC had accused the three companies of violating the FTC Act and also accused 1010 Digital Works and MindSift of a second violation by giving CMG the “‘means and instrumentalities’ to deceive customers through marketing materials, sales pitches, and responses to customer questions that misled small businesses” about Active Listening. Under the settlement terms, the three companies are also prohibited from misrepresenting their services’ capabilities and their collection and use of voice data.
FTC 指控这三家公司违反了《FTC 法案》，并指控 1010 Digital Works 和 MindSift 犯有第二项违规行为，即通过营销材料、销售推介和对客户问题的回答，为 CMG 提供了“欺骗客户的手段和工具”，误导了小型企业对“主动监听”的认知。根据和解条款，这三家公司还被禁止对其服务能力以及语音数据的收集和使用进行虚假陈述。
“We are pleased to have this matter resolved,” a CMG spokesperson said in a statement to Wired. “Our local marketing team relied on marketing materials provided to us by a third-party vendor about their product. We withdrew the materials expeditiously and stopped further use of the product.”
“我们很高兴此事得到解决，”CMG 发言人在给《连线》（Wired）的一份声明中表示。“我们的本地营销团队依赖于第三方供应商提供的有关其产品的营销材料。我们迅速撤回了这些材料，并停止了对该产品的进一步使用。”
Active Listening may not have been real, but smart devices can still capture data in less obvious ways. More realistic risks include Meta smart glasses sharing intimate recordings, smart TVs tracking viewing habits, Ring cameras spying on users, and voice assistants listening without a proper prompt.
“主动监听”可能并非真实存在，但智能设备仍然可以通过不那么明显的方式捕获数据。更现实的风险包括 Meta 智能眼镜分享私密录音、智能电视追踪观看习惯、Ring 摄像头监视用户，以及语音助手在没有适当提示的情况下进行监听。