‘Creepy’ Listening Tool for Targeted Didn’t Actually Work, FTC Says

Key points

• The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday that Cox Media Group and two other marketing companies, MindSift LLC and 1010 Digital Works, have agreed to collectively pay nearly $1 million to settle allegations that they deceived their customers—other businesses—by claiming that they could help target based on audio recordings collected from consumers’ smart devices via a marketing service called Active Listening.
• In a statement to WIRED, a spokesperson for CMG says, “We are pleased to have this matter resolved.
• 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.” MindSift and 1010 Digital Works did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• (Disclosure: The author of this article previously worked for the FTC.) Over the years, conspiracy theories about companies listening to people through their phones in order to...