An exceptionally weird controversy has come back to haunt Cox Media and a pair of marketing firms, which claimed they were secretly listening to users via phones and smart devices - despite little evidence they actually could. On Thursday the Federal Trade Commission announced that Cox, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works would pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations that they were in fact lying about spying on people to target ads.
As chronicled by Techdirt a couple of years ago, Cox publicly boasted about a system called Voice Data back in 2023, telling potential digital marketing clients they could ensure "every casual conversation be …