New Advertising Start-Up Spies On Your Calls

AP:

A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers' computer screens based on what's being talked about.

For instance, a caller talking about going for dinner might see ads to local restaurants and restaurant review sites, while someone pondering whether to buy a new computer might see ads for computer stores. Relevant unsponsored links also appear.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

I would neither put any money into this, nor suffer an advertisement from (or about) my company to appear anywhere near to it.

One of the most-basic principles about the Internet, and about what succeeds or does not succeed on the Internet, is that the user typically employs the Internet as a means to an end; not as an end to itself (like TV). When the user =wants= to search for something, then it is "great advertising placement" to offer your local service to what the computer determines to be a local group of users WHO WANT your ad to appear ... provided that it is listed clearly as "an advertisement." But when your ad appears when it is NOT wanted, it's "worse than spam" and it has YOUR company-name on it. That is "far more deleterious than you know."

No one who is carrying-on a private telephone conversation wants an advertiser to eavesdrop on their calls. Ever.

And that is precisely why VoIP conversations, in any service worth its salt, are =encrypted= from the very moment that they leave your box. No one knows what your message-packets contain except the intended recipient.

[VoiceOmmAfar]

This type of communication exploitation for gain is the most upsetting thing there is. What's the difference between a government’s [or any other institution's or private source , for that matter] spying and spying for discovering your 'needs' and capitalizing on it. Why is the one all right and the other isn’t? It is the predominant soullessness of it all and mindless interference with real reverberations of the universe [or synchronicity, which is not haphazard at all] that are most damaging and irreversibly so.
If I need a bike and I am well centered I step out and wander into one for me [good thing] or I actively search for it [still good thing although we have had internet 'tracking tools' doing pretty much the same sale pushing pop upping for quite some time now] but when I talk about it via VoIP [now being announced as if it has not been going on with all the mike spy programs that have been slipped into our regular tracking spyware already] and almost instantly receive a pop-up or I am sent an email with someone's related product and another someone is paid ad money for it - the fact that we have no means of defending ourselves, and no necessary energy as the advertisers are infinitely more brazen then users in their 'campaigns' - which is BTW a war term meaning attacking from all possible sides and by all means - THAT reeks of sulfur!

The 'public adjusted' to spying - humans adjust to anything if it lasts long enough - or succumb. These things are made to have us ‘adjust’ - adjust to legitimizing the soul diggers. Being closely watched is not healthy for humans.