That Game on Your Phone May Be Tracking What You’re Watching on TV
Using a smartphone’s microphone, Alphonso’s software can detail what people watch by identifying audio signals in TV ads and shows, sometimes even matching
that information with the places people visit and the movies they see.
Companies gathering such data, especially through games, need to make their business practices clear to consumers “because it’s so inherently unexpected
and surprising,” said Justin Brookman, the director of consumer privacy and technology policy at the advocacy group Consumers Union, and a former policy director at the trade commission who worked on the Silverpush case.
The disparate viewing information is tied to IP addresses, which can be matched to characteristics like age, gender, income
and more through big data brokers like Experian without using personally identifiable information like names and addresses.
Alphonso declined to say how many people it is collecting data from, and Mr. Chordia said
that he could not disclose the names of the roughly 1,000 games and the messaging and social apps with Alphonso software because a rival was trying to hurt its relationships with developers.
“We have to be really careful as we have more devices capturing more information in living rooms and bedrooms and on the street and in other people’s homes
that the public is not blindsided and surprised by things,” said Dave Morgan, the founder and chief executive of Simulmedia, which works with advertisers on targeted TV ads.
“When you see ‘permission for microphone access for ads,’ it may not be clear to a user that, Oh, this means it’s going
to be listening to what I do all the time to see if I’m watching ‘Monday Night Football,’” Mr. Brookman said.
