Hundreds of mobile games are listening to what you watch on TV – BGR
▻http://bgr.com/2017/12/29/mobile-games-listening-ads-kids-apps
▻https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/kids-on-smartphones.jpg?quality=98&strip=all
A few years ago, people would have considered you to be paranoid if you thought your phone was always listening to you. But now it has become common practice for developers to ask your permission to use your phone’s microphone, whether or not that functionality actually has anything to do with the app or not.
A New York Times report this week highlighted one particular startup called Alphonso, whose software is being used by hundreds of app developers. This software collects TV-viewing data for advertisers “by identifying audio signals in TV ads and shows, sometimes even matching that information with the places people visit and the movies they see.” Advertisers then use this information to target ads more appropriately to individual users.
“We have to be really careful as we have more devices capturing more information in living rooms and bedrooms and on the street and in other people’s homes that the public is not blindsided and surprised by things,” Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia, told the New York Times. “It’s not what’s legal. It is what’s not creepy.”