You may have seenthe adsthat Facebook has been running on boob tube in a full - courtroom military press to apologise for abusing user seclusion . They ’re embarrassing . And , it turns out , they may be a sign of things to come . establish on a recently published patent coating , Facebook could one day use advertising on television to further violate your privacy once you ’ve forgotten about all those other times .
Everything in the patent is written in legalese and is a bit faint about what happen to the audio data . One example scenario imagines that various ambient audio would be eliminate and the subject matter play on the broadcast would be identified . data point would be amass about the drug user ’s propinquity to the audio recording . Then , the identifying information , time , and identity of the Facebook user would be sent to the societal media society for further processing .
In addition to all the data user voluntarily give up , and the incidental data it collects through techniques likebrowser fingerprinting , Facebook would practice this audio information to image out which advert are most effectual . For example , if a user walked away from the TV or changed the channel as shortly as the ad began to play , it might consider the ad inefficient or on a depicted object the user does n’t find interesting . If the user stays where they are and the audio recording is gimcrack and light , Facebook could equate that seeming efficacious ad with your other data to make better proposition for its ad customer .
Yes , this is creepy-crawly as infernal region and feels like someone essay to make a patent for a peephole on a characterless painting . Surely Facebook would n’t start doing this with all of the warmth they ’re take fromlawmakersand itssteady dripof bad publicity since the Cambridge Analytica scandal , would they ? We ’ve asked Facebook if they have any design to follow through this patent in the outcome that it ’s approved but did n’t receive an immediate reply . Based on the fact that Facebook has beenapologizingon and off for more than a 10 , and its intact business model trust on hump more about you than its competitors , we ’re going to foretell that it will definitely do this if it find the chance .
Though this patent was published on June 16 , it was file away in December of 2016 . There ’s a small amount of solace in knowing that Facebook is n’t actively seeking approval for this at exactly the worst potential metre . The societal web has only recentlyconvincedconcerned citizenry that it is n’t already recording their conversations through its mobile app .
It ’s less satisfying to know thathundreds of appsalready heed out for audio beacons embed in selling broadcasts . peradventure Facebook ’s patent will conflict on the unity that already exist and it ’ll never get favorable reception . But unluckily , this dystopian time to come is already a small part of our present .
[ US Patent and Trademark Office(PDF ) viaMetro ]
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