Some games 🎮 on Android are using your phone’s microphone 🎤 to track TV habits for better ads 👀
Recently, it's been revealed that quite a few games on Android are secretly using your microphone to listen to your surroundings for more personalized ads within the game.
A report from The New York Times (via The Verge) reveals that "more than 250" games currently available on Google Play are using a special piece of software to track the TV habits of a user.
This software is used in these games do, in some cases, notify users about what's going on, but in many cases that information is completely glossed over and just hidden in the app's privacy policy.
What's a bit creepier here is the fact that Alphonso's software can still listen in when the app isn't being used, meaning this information could be recorded essentially all of the time.
Alphonso refuses to disclose a list of what apps and games, on Android or iOS, are using its software for this purpose, but apparently, the total is roughly 1,000.
COMMENT.