That Game on Your Phone May Be Tracking What You’re Watching on TV - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/business/media/alphonso-app-tracking.html?_r=0
At first glance, the gaming apps — with names like “Pool 3D,” “Beer Pong: Trickshot” and “Real Bowling Strike 10 Pin” — seem innocuous. One called “Honey Quest” features Jumbo, an animated bear.
Yet these apps, once downloaded onto a smartphone, have the ability to keep tabs on the viewing habits of their users — some of whom may be children — even when the games aren’t being played.
It is yet another example of how companies, using devices that many people feel they can’t do without, are documenting how audiences in a rapidly changing entertainment landscape are viewing television and commercials.
More than 250 games that use Alphonso software are available in the Google Play store; some are also available in Apple’s app store.
“A lot of the folks will go and turn off their phone, but a small portion of people don’t and put it in their pocket,” Mr. Chordia said. “In those cases, we are able to pick up in a small sample who is watching the show or the movie.” Mr. Chordia said that Alphonso has a deal with the music-listening app Shazam, which has microphone access on many phones. Alphonso is able to provide the snippets it picks up to Shazam, he said, which can use its own content-recognition technology to identify users and then sell that information to Alphonso.
Shazam, which Apple recently agreed to buy, declined to comment about Alphonso.