In the face of the data leakage scandal, Mark Zuckerberg said in the hearing that Facebook did not eavesdrop on users’ speech through Mi Gaofeng, so as to target advertisers in a more accurate way. But interestingly, Google didn’t respond in any way to this.
Recently, someone conducted a live test for this. The tester who did not own a dog first showed that all the advertisements on the webpage were unrelated to it before he mentioned “dog toys”, and then he talked to himself about “dog toys”, “plush toys”, “Kong (dog toy brand)” and “red and black”.
As a result, when he browsed the website again, he found that all the advertisements immediately turned into dog toys, including the red and black stuffed dog toys and Kong’s advertisements, which was enough to prove that Google had eavesdropped on the voice recognition system. On the other hand, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), known as the strictest personal data protection law in history, will be implemented at the end of May, adding another layer of uncertainty to Google.
Because the GDPR is a highly human rights protection regulation, companies that share user data with third parties without explicit consent could face fines of €20 million (US$25 million) or 4% of global revenue.
With the GDPR coming into effect, Facebook has learned the lessons of this time and decided to terminate its partnerships with a number of big data intermediaries, rather than ordering all departments to re-examine the data they have and assess whether it is necessary to obtain it, and whether the data can improve the quality of the services provided by Facebook and prevent huge fines.
However, Google has done little to address the eavesdropping, and has even chosen to remain silent. While marketers in the market are optimistic about Google for the time being, it remains to be seen whether this will cause reputational damage like Facebook’s if the incident ferments and erupts.
