Sen. Marsha Blackburn is probing whether Meta and Google are potentially coordinating with a top marketing firm to “actively listen” to Americans’ phone calls and use that information to place ads, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Blackburn (R-Tenn.) fired off letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Daniel York, the president and CEO of marketing firm Cox Media Group on Tuesday, citing a Post report earlier this month covering the alleged invasion of smartphone users’ privacy.
“Consumers have long expressed concerns about their privacy in the virtual space and how their data is misused,” she wrote in the letter to York.
“If this reporting is true, it confirms longstanding suspicions by many consumers that technology and media companies are violating their privacy for profit by marketing products that closely reflect key words or phrases from private conversations.”
Blackburn demanded a slide deck from Cox Media that was presented to investors touting the “Active Listening” software, which uses artificial intelligence to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations,” the outlet 404 Media first reported.
The deck said that consumers “leave a data trail based on their conversations and online behavior” and their AI-powered software collects and analyzes “behavioral and voice data from 470+ sources.”
Meta and Google are both Cox Media Group clients, the slideshow also revealed.
Meta was unable to confirm whether its data was being used by CMG, but a spokesperson said the company “does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years.”
“We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
Google has since removed CMG from its “Partners Program” website and a spokesperson said in a statement that any “advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies.
“[W]hen we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action,” the spokesperson added.
Neither statements were sufficient for Blackburn, who pointed out how both companies have run afoul of privacy considerations in the past.
“In 2019, the FTC imposed a $5 billion penalty on Facebook for violating consumers’ privacy,” the Tennessee Republican noted to Zuckerberg. “Then-FTC Chairman Joe Simons said of Facebook, ‘despite repeated promises to its billions of users worldwide that they could control how their personal information is shared, Facebook undermined consumers’ choices.’
“This long demonstrated pattern of public reassurances by Meta directly contradicts the company’s record of flagrant disregard for user privacy,” she added.
“Last year, Google settled a $5 billion lawsuit claiming it ‘secretly tracked the internet use of millions of people who thought they were doing their browsing privately,’” Blackburn also told Pichai.
The senator has asked for answers by Oct. 8 to questions about the company CEOs’ awareness of the “active listening” software, whether consumers were notified and how it polices ad firms that may be taking advantage of sensitive user data.
“It is imperative that consumers have the ability to clearly opt in and out of features that track their behavior and that they are alerted when these features are deployed,” she said.
Reps for Meta, Google and Cox Media Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Blackburn and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) spurred the Senate to pass their internet privacy bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, earlier this year in a 91-3 vote.
They have since called on the House to take up the legislation, which provides safeguards that would shield minors on social media platforms from harmful content.