By Andrew Miller
Most people have experienced the strange coincidence where an ad pops up on your phone for something you were just talking about.
For example, you mention to a friend that you want new running shoes. Boom, there’s a Nike ad next time you open Instagram. Or maybe your wife says she’s thinking Mexican for dinner. Shortly afterwards you see a targeted ad for a local taco joint nearby.
It’s easy to feel like your devices are listening in.
That’s why a marketing company decided to sell technology doing just that.
Cox Media Group started marketing a service called Active Listening in 2023. It could pick up conversations through phones, smart TVs, and other devices. Then, it would show your ad to someone nearby in the market for what you sell.
Imagine the power to reach your target audience the second they express interest. For a local business, it sounded like a dream.
The dream didn’t stay private for long. In 2024, the tech outlet 404 Media got hold of Cox’s internal sales deck and published it. Facing backlash, Cox denied that its service listened to conversations. However, their marketing materials for Active Listening said otherwise.
So, they continued to sell it.
Eventually word reached the FTC, prompting an investigation into Cox.
It was a lose-lose situation. If Active Listening worked as advertised, collecting voice data without consent would have broken the law. On the other hand, deceptively selling a service not as advertised was still illegal.
Ultimately, the FTC found that no voice data was collected at all. Instead, those who bought from Cox received generic email lists purchased cheaply from data brokers all over the country.
Businesses thought these lists were local, high-intent leads collected through voice data. In reality, the lists were full of random strangers sometimes hundreds of miles away.
After some time, the case was finally settled last month.
Cox Media Group and two marketing partners agreed to pay $930,000 back to the businesses that bought the service. All three are also barred from claiming they can listen, target by location, or collect voice data they never touched.
Sometimes wanting customers badly enough can make a fairy tale sound like a plan.
P.S. If your business needs capital, Signet can get you funded in as little as 24 hours. No fairy tales, just funding. Let’s talk.