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Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit::2020 lawsuit accused Google of tracking incognito activity, tying it to users' profiles.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Read the document:

The growing ability to access microphone data on devices like smartphones and tablets enables our technology partner to aggregate and analyze voice data during pre-purchase conversations.

Key word is "technology partner". They're buying voice transcripts ripped from someone else's spyware and selling the service of scraping it for keywords and maybe somehow tying that back to an individual by cross-referencing the hit against data from traditional above-board ad platforms.

Google isn't buying transcripts, Facebook isn't buying transcripts. It's Cox Media buying shady recordings stolen from spyware-compromised devices and then trying to whitewash it into something sellable with their (unverifiable) cross-analytics middleware.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh sure, so now you're gonna insist they're buying shit that totally doesn't exist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

No, I am not contradicting myself. Let me say it again with the ambiguity removed:

Cox Media isn't an advertiser, they sell a dressed-up analytics service. Think spreadsheets (that's literally the service they're selling in this copy, a monthly report spreadsheet).
The "technology partner" selling this data to Cox is accessing it by bypassing the normal and correct operation of the device using malware.
What does not "exist" is a shadowy cabal of smartphone manufacturers scheming to hide listening devices in the pockets of their consumers.

I'm sure you still believe this is a load of apologia and frankly you can think what you want, but you should probably know that I'd already read about the Cox story when it first broke and specifically chose my words with that knowledge in mind.