Google developing eavesdropping software: Audio ‘fingerprint’ for content relevant ads
The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what’s on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was “that’s cool, but dangerous”. The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later. The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that’s adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.
I don’t know much about this whole idea yet, but it’s not surprising that we have come even to the point where this sort of thing can be discussed as being not too far down the road. Google is simply trying to provided services that benefit their customers, their brand, and their stockholders; that’s what businesses do. Of course, few businesses have as far-reaching an impact on our everyday lives as Google. While some of their ideas and products have proved truly amazing, this latest one, if it is what it’s presented to be, does raise some interesting question. For instance, do we WANT anyone, whether Google or another company, committing what some would consider a violation of privacy in order to feed us advertising?
Does this idea place us a little bit farther along the “computer chips implanted in our butt” road? Or is this something that hold promise that will untimately not be realized. With advertisers looking in ever more strange and unusual places to get their message in front of potential customers (e.g.: CBS stamps ads for their fall lineup on individual eggs), the only limits would seem to be the boundaries of a marketer’s imagination (ads on condoms?). With conventional methods of advertising producing fewer and smaller results, what Google is allegedly doing is hardly surprising. Fortunately, though, there is an easy to foil this idea: don’t use a microphone.
Just wait, though; Google or someone else will figure a way to get around that as well. Don’t you just LOVE capitalism??
