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India-Based Zapr Has Developed Tech That Listens To Ambient Sounds Around Users To Build Targeted Ad Profiles, Several Popular Local Services Use Its Tech (factordaily.com)
Bengaluru-based Zapr Media Labs, which counts Rupert Murdoch-led media group Star and several major local companies including Flipkart (which is now owned by Walmart), music streaming service Saavn, handset maker Micromax as its investors, has developed a tech that listens to ambient sounds around users to build targeted advertising profiles of them, reports news outlet FactorDaily. Zapr does this by using the microphone on the smartphone. Several major services in the country including Chota Bheem games to Dainik Bhaskar (a news outlet) to, likely, even Hotstar (a hugely popular streaming service which launched its service in the US and Canada last year, and which as you may recall, set a global record for most simultaneous views earlier this year) have embedded Zapr's technology into their apps. FactorDaily reports that most of these services are not forthcoming to their customers about what kind of monitoring they are doing. An excerpt from the report: One of the apps that inspired Zapr's founding team was the popular music detection and identification app Shazam. But, its three co-founders saw opportunity in going further. "Instead of detecting music, can we detect all kinds of medium? Can we detect television? Can we detect movies in a theatre? Can we detect video on demand? Can we really build a profile for a user about their media consumption habits... and that really became the idea, the vision we wanted to solve for," Sandipan Mondal, CEO of Zapr Media Labs, said in an interview last week on Thursday.
Shorn of jargon, the underlying Zapr tech listens to ambient sounds around you, analyses it, and profiles users based on their media consumption habits. "That data would be very useful in order to recommend the right kind of content and also for brands and advertisers to hopefully reduce the wastage and inefficiencies and make smarter decisions," said Mondal, who co-founded the company in 2012 along with his batchmates from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (batch of 2010) Deepak Baid and Sajo Mathews.
Zapr claims to have the largest media consumption analytics database in India and helps television channels and brands to earn a better bang for their advertising buck. To be sure, advertising -- even with the internet's promise of better targeting -- still is an inaccurate business with proxies, at best, helping measure its return on investment. But, Zapr's tech comes with privacy and data concerns -- lots of it.
Shorn of jargon, the underlying Zapr tech listens to ambient sounds around you, analyses it, and profiles users based on their media consumption habits. "That data would be very useful in order to recommend the right kind of content and also for brands and advertisers to hopefully reduce the wastage and inefficiencies and make smarter decisions," said Mondal, who co-founded the company in 2012 along with his batchmates from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (batch of 2010) Deepak Baid and Sajo Mathews.
Zapr claims to have the largest media consumption analytics database in India and helps television channels and brands to earn a better bang for their advertising buck. To be sure, advertising -- even with the internet's promise of better targeting -- still is an inaccurate business with proxies, at best, helping measure its return on investment. But, Zapr's tech comes with privacy and data concerns -- lots of it.
Pop open the phone and clip the wires going to the microphone. Problem solved!
The only control I have over this is to not have a smartphone.
That is not the only control you have. You also have the ability to not download and install apps that access your microphone.
If you install an app that uses the microphone, then read the fine print so you understand why it needs that access, and what it is doing with the data.
I wish someone who did have control over this would put a stop to it.
Look in the mirror. You will see the person who has control.
Think about it: do you really need to play games, surf the web, watch movies, or any of the other crap you do with your smartphone other than make and receive calls and text messages? No, you do not, you WANT to do those things, but you do not NEED to do those things. It'll just take an adjustment.
Furthermore: What's the price difference every month between basic cell service with text messaging, and that plus the overpriced, underserving data-plan you have now? How much money would you save every year if you didn't have a smartphone?
Then there's the phone itself. Your smartphone is a ticking timebomb, waiting to go haywire on you, and you cannot get it repaired when it does. There goes, what, at least $500? I have a $50 cheap-ass plastic clamshell phone. Works great as a phone, that's all it needs to do. It dies? I say "oh well shit" toss it in the bin and get another one. No big deal
B-b-b-but Rick, what about Facebook, Twitter, and other social media? All my friends will miss me! I'll DIE without social media!
No, you won't, you'll actually have a better life overall not being distracted by the cancer that is so-called 'social media'. Be more ACTUALLY social with ACTUAL friends, in person, instead. You'll benefit far more from the social contact than you will from shitty Facebook and garbage like it. So will your kids, especially; get riid of their smartphones, too, and save all sorts of money!
So you see you should just make the leap and get rid of your smartphone. You'll thank me later for this advice.
Bill, word has it that you don't even have to download any apps, it's either baked right into the firmware of the phone, or you get surveillance software push-installed silently, with it running silently in the background. Your phone could be listening to you right now and you'd never know it, no way to tell. Don't tell me I'm paranoid, either, it's all been documented, and don't tell me you're not worth surveilling, because that's not the point. The only way to be sure you win this game is to not play.
If they follow you everywhere you go and log what you are doing, shouldn't these old laws eventually start to apply? Yea I know; don't buy such a device, because these things are so easy to avoid. That fellow citizen standing next to you probably has one even if you don't, not to forget all the cameras watching you everywhere...