{"id":850,"date":"2026-05-25T18:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=850"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:49:14","slug":"cox-media-marketing-ai-powered-phone-spying-ads-ftc-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=850","title":{"rendered":"Cox Media fined after bragging it spied on users through their phones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">An exceptionally weird controversy has come back to haunt Cox Media and a pair of marketing firms, which claimed they were secretly listening to users via phones and smart devices \u2014 despite little evidence they actually could. On Thursday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/news\/press-releases\/2026\/05\/ftc-require-cox-media-group-two-other-firms-pay-nearly-1-million-settle-charges-they-deceived\">the Federal Trade Commission announced<\/a> that Cox, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works would pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations that they were in fact lying about spying on people to target ads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2024\/08\/29\/cox-caught-again-bragging-it-spies-on-users-with-embedded-device-microphones-to-sell-ads\/\">chronicled by <em>Techdirt<\/em><\/a> a couple of years ago, Cox publicly boasted about a system called Voice Data back in 2023, telling potential digital marketing clients they could ensure \u201cevery casual conversation between two consumers becomes a tool for you to target, retarget, and retain customers.\u201d It compared the tech to an episode of <em>Black Mirror<\/em> and described it as a real version of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/789991\/meta-instagram-microphone-listen-ads-targeting-adam-mosseri\">persistent, largely unsubstantiated rumor<\/a> that social media companies routinely listen to users through phone microphones. Cox backpedaled and denied it was listening to conversations, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/cmg-cox-media-actually-listening-to-phones-smartspeakers-for-ads-marketing\/\"><em>404 Media<\/em> published<\/a> multiple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting\/\">internal pitch decks<\/a> making essentially the same highly dystopian claim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">At the time, there were significant doubts this was actually happening, and the FTC complaints back this up. \u201cThis service did not, in fact, listen in on consumers\u2019 conversations or use voice data at all \u2014 nor did the service accurately place ads in customers\u2019 desired locations,\u201d it says in its press release. \u201cInstead, the service the companies provided consisted of reselling \u2014 at a significant markup \u2014 email lists obtained from other data brokers.\u201d The agency also says the companies lied about consumers having opted into this system \u2014 so even if they <em>could <\/em>spy on people, it alleges, they\u2019d still have been breaking the law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/policy\/937027\/cox-media-marketing-ai-powered-phone-spying-ads-ftc-fine\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An exceptionally weird controversy has come back to haunt Cox Media and a pair of marketing firms, which claimed they were secretly listening to users via phones and smart devices \u2014 despite little evidence they actually could. On Thursday the Federal Trade Commission announced that Cox, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works would pay a total [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[46,74,177,34],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-news","tag-policy","tag-privacy","tag-tech"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cox Media fined after bragging it spied on users through their phones - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cox Media and two marketing firms have been fined for falsely advertising a service it compared to Black Mirror.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=850\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cox Media fined after bragging it spied on users through their phones - 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