Slashdot Mirror
Free Phone Calls... If Advertisers Can Eavesdrop
Dekortage writes "Today, Pudding Media is introducing an Internet phone service similar to Skype's online service, but without any toll charges. The catch: they are eavesdropping on phone calls with voice recognition software to monitor calls, then push conversation-relevant the ads to the subscriber's computer screen. Interestingly, during tests, "conversations [were] actually changing based on what was on the screen," said the president. "Our ability to influence the conversation was remarkable.""
Bob: Oh yeah? Oh, is that the free phone calls with conversation-relevant ads showing up on your screen?
Phil: That's right, it's completely free!
Bob: Heh, monkey sex.
Phil: Uh, what?
Bob: Monkey sex!
Phil: Ew, gross, stop that.
Bob: Beastiality.
Phil: Oh yuck, these flash based ads are
Bob: Goatse.
Phil: Ahhhhhhhhh! *click*
My work here is dung.
"Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?"
"Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree."
It's like Echelon got drunk and woke up next to a spam-bot. Man, that's an ugly child.
They are not keeping logs? Don't make me laugh. How would they even keep statistics of what is going on with their ad system?! How would they prove to their customers, the ad buyers, that they are actually popping them in context, instead of simply cheating and doing it at random?!
You've confused corporate-speak with reality.
In real life, in order to do voice recognition function, it has to be tuned on real data. In order to tune it, you have to collect samples, listen to them yourself and then compare the results to the automated recognition system. That is what they, by necessity, must do. Furthermore, the very process requires that your conversation is recorded, in some stages of the process, in digital form, even if that recording is supposed to be discarded further on. It is tivial for the employees or an unscrupulous business person to take advantage of that. And I guarantee you that in the fine, fine print of your "free service" agreement you agree to not hold them responsible should your conversations find their way to the "stupidest phone calls evah!" web site or some such.
In short, when you sign for this shit, you are as good as recorded for any and all uses the corporate crooks can think of today or will think of tommorrow.