More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

Your Android phone may be listening to ultrasonic ad beacons without your knowledge.

DAN GOODIN - 5/5/2017, 8:14 AM

Almost a year after app developer SilverPush vowed to kill its privacy-threatening software that used inaudible sound embedded into TV commercials to covertly track phone users, the technology is more popular than ever, with more than 200 Android apps that have been downloaded millions of times from the official Google Play market, according to a recently published research paper.

Beware of ads that use inaudible sound to link your phone, TV, tablet, and PC
As of January, there were 234 Android apps that were created using SilverPush's publicly available software developer kit, according to the paper, which was published by researchers from Technische Universitat Braunschweig in Germany. That represents a dramatic increase in the number of Android apps known to use the creepy audio tracking scheme. In April 2015, there were only five such apps.
The apps silently listen for ultrasonic sounds that marketers use as high-tech beacons to indicate when a phone user is viewing a TV commercial or other type of targeted audio. A representative sample of just five of the 234 apps have been downloaded from 2.25 million to 11.1 million times, according to the researchers, citing official Google Play figures. None of them discloses the tracking capabilities in their privacy policies.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/theres-a-spike-in-android-apps-that-covertly-listen-for-inaudible-sounds-in-ads/


As you no doubt are aware, GOOGLE owns and distributes the Android operating system that now runs 80% of new smartphones
https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016

I'm still going to follow the election results on Google.

Macron 65.5%
Le Pen 34.5%

so far so good

Update: It's over! Macron is the projected winner!