10 ms·

ChatGPT for Google was #1 on HN earlier this year. Check out the GitHub repo now: that person sold the extension. I had a small side project extension, ~25,000

• ericd 3y ago
  The most galling offer we saw on the mobile app side was something that would turn on the user's microphone, and listen for ads on tvs around them to track what they'd been exposed to offline. Adtech is such a thoroughly gross field.
  • Raed667 3y ago
    So your app already had microphone/audio permission granted for legitimate reasons or were they going to do the pop-up after the update?
    • ericd 3y ago
      Nah, we didn’t ask for any permissions at the time iirc, except gps if/when people wanted to use that to hop the map to the right spot.
  • uhtred 3y ago
    so this really does happen then? Because I used to be convinced it wasn't a coincidence when I saw ads online for some niche uncommon topic I had recently talked out loud about.
    • gregschlom 3y ago
      This matches the audio signature of the TV ad - basically, it's like Shazam, but for TV ads. It's currently not economically possible to listen to user's conversations, transcribe them to text, and serve ads based on that. It would cost orders of magnitude more in processing power than you could get from the extra sales. This might change in the future, of course
      • jabradoodle 3y ago
        Wouldn't cost that much if the transcribing is done on device
        • camdat 3y ago
          This would be immediately obvious in a cursory analysis of performance. On-device transcription is not only computationally infeasible, it would also require model capabilities far beyond what is currently SOTA. Google had (and has afaik) significant challenges implementing multiple wake-word detection for precisely this reason. Transcribing a couple of words accurately on-device without a major performance penalty (so that it can be running in the background always) is just _barely_ coming out now.
          • jabradoodle 3y ago
            I would have to take your word for it but my phone is able to transcribe speech with no problem and no internet connection. Of course running it 24/7 in the background would ruin my battery, you would have to be smarter than that.
            • camdat 3y ago
              Which phone/app? I would be very surprised if a manufacturer has an entirely on-device real-time ASR model, maybe I'm behind.
          • ct520 3y ago
            rewind.ai has entered chat.
        • yomlica8 3y ago
          There's this weird narrative I see that "computers just aren't powerful enough" to do things I remember them already doing on Pentium 1 class machines in the 90s.
      • ericd 3y ago
        Yeah, my understanding was that it was audio fingerprinting tv ads, not transcribing anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to vacuum up other stuff. That said, I think it should be feasible to do basic low-accuracy transcription on-device, especially with all the neural engine hardware making inference more efficient.
  • jstanley 3y ago
    But every time this comes up the threads are flooded with people saying it doesn't actually happen and the ad companies just work out what you're interested in by what you're browsing.
    • iforgotpassword 3y ago
      And that all this information gathering for targeting absolutely matters.
    • vkou 3y ago
      Fly-by-night ad networks might engage in this. Ad networks that are in the sights of regulators, and can be slapped with $X billion fines, that may well exceed the marginal revenue produced by improved tracking[1] are going to be a bit antsier around doing that sort of thing. [1] How much more money will a $100B ad business make if they improved tracking accuracy by %1? It's some positive number, but significantly less than $1B.
      • consumer451 3y ago
        Would a top tier ad network be exposed to any liability if the fly-by-night did the sketchy work, then the top tier bought that “anonymized” data?
        • vkou 3y ago
          Probably not direct legal risk[1] if they weren't the ones collecting the data, but integrating with all that shit has the incredible risk that your counterparty might just go up in smoke next week, while leaving you with a busted product, and all the reputational damage fallout. It's picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. You'd have to be a truly desperate PM to consider it. [1] Still all the legal risks of holding that data, but they are easier to mitigate.
      • luma 3y ago
        So instead they buy that data from the fly-by-night operators and carry on as usual. That's the key problem here, this data only needs to be collected by one shady operator, "the market" will handle the rest.
  • comboy 3y ago
    Why broadcasted ads which are the same for everybody? Is it trying to track effectiveness of these ads?
    • jrockway 3y ago
      Why not? Your cable company would like to charge you extra if you mute the ads or use the bathroom during ad breaks. That's just capitalism.
      • codedokode 3y ago
        Exactly. Going to bathroom during ads is just a display of disrespect to creators and marketing people. You could go during the show instead.
    • lmm 3y ago
      Probably to target an ad for the same product/service at someone who was in the same room as a TV ad. About 10 years ago I worked for an ad targeting company and we got ~50% more click-through on a web ad just by showing it shortly after a TV ad aired in that location (just using the geoip timezone and hoping they might've been watching the right channel), if you could do that only for people who've actually been exposed to the TV ad there's the potential for huge uplift there.
      • comboy 3y ago
        Oh, that's clever.
  • rcfox 3y ago
    When I worked on audio firmware for the BlackBerry, one of the external devices I had to support was called a "security plug", which just shorted the headset mic and headphones to ground. It always seemed kind of silly to me because there was still the handset mic on the phone that could be activated separately.
    • extraduder_ire 3y ago
      Did an external mic not stop the internal one from working? I assume the plug was a box-checking exercise more than anything.
      • rcfox 3y ago
        I think the default audio routing was setup to stop the internal mic, but if you used the mixer API, you could do weird, custom things.
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
    "Adtech is such a thoroughly gross field." Someone else on HN called it "elegant" last week. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975056
    • antoniojtorres 3y ago
      I work in ad tech and elegant is not a word I’d use. It’s very, very loosely coupled and has a grave transparency problem.
    • sph 3y ago
      > "The current movement to avoid tracking is an extremely powerful centralizing force." What a biased, myopic comment. As if ad companies are a grassroots movement against centralisation. As if ad tech is not in the hands of the powerful few tech companies. They have defended ads in 2021 as well. I wonder where they work. I mean, somebody must be writing the backend for all these ad companies.
  • BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Adtech is psychological manipulation. Radicalisation uses the same techniques: Create the perception of a vacuum and then provide the solution to fill it. One is actively censored and you can go to jail for, the other isn't even on the legislative agenda. There are semi-understandable reasons, but it's far from entirely non-hypocritical. - Do you trust your constituency to make up their own minds or not? - Who are you trying to protect? - From what? - From whom? And this is without even mentioning online advertising as a (seemingly increasing) vector of scams, frauds, malware and viruses.
  • ummonk 3y ago
    When I worked at Meta, the execs said that many users think they're being spied on when they see ads based on a conversation they've had in real life, but the execs categorically denied that this could be happening, and said it's all just a coincidence. I thought this was a completely unfounded denial, since Meta had no way of auditing 3rd party apps on the user's phone, and it's perfectly plausible for another app to spy on their conversations and then use that to provide targeted ads to the Facebook account associated with the individual's email.
    • tiffanyg 3y ago
      Realistically, in a simple statistical way, plain "coincidences" have a significant "expected value". I.e., if you simply take the billions of people across the planet, and look even across a single day, lots of coincidences occur. Now, add in psychological effects - "synchronicity", "frequency illusion" ("Baader-Meinhof"), "recency illusion", confirmation bias, etc... I'd expect a fair bit of compounding*. Then, add in simple use of statistics, statistical inference, etc. and basic tracking of user navigation around the web, on a given website, etc. I've had these experiences, perhaps one or two times a year, on average. Experiences where I was VERY surprised by ads presented. Experiences that would easily suggest a microphone must have been on when it shouldn't have been. Sometimes, I realized I'd used someone else's device in a way that could be tied to me. Other times, while some "leaps" would be involved, I could basically deduce myself that someone who had looked for information on some "X", and information on some "Y", might really be thinking about some "Z" that isn't easily arrived at from either X or Y in vacuo. Spying, in the sense you suggest, can't be ruled out by the above. But, I would ask - why even spy? Is a company like "meta" really going to get much more useful (from their perspective) info by doing so? Particularly given the COST? It's becoming more realistic, arguably, but, really, these companies have had more than enough info on just about anyone for well over a decade to keep their algorithms and such well-occupied. People gladly hand over tons of data constantly ... with full awareness and intentionality, and otherwise. The vast majority have no idea what statistical inference and other techniques can suggest based on seemingly obliquely connected info. Further, most users are so accustomed to "cookies" and other hidden types of tracking, and ignoring EULAs** ... really, it's hard for me to imagine a good case for doing anything more ... "invasive" and ... legally / otherwise dubious. Edit: mostly came back to add one of my favorite (ab)uses of (statistical) inference: https://youtu.be/Oseqh7SMIvo https://youtu.be/Oseqh7SMIvo (also, added the bit below about EULAs) * Outweighing significantly, I'd suggest, other quirks of human perception, memory, etc. that may diminish awareness and recognition of potentially related events. I write "suggest" mainly because I don't have ready refs to offer this second and don't have time to dig a couple up ... IIRC, the research that exists strongly favors compounding, though, of course, this could be argued to be influenced itself by human psychology (including social and economic factors, e.g., "publish or perish" etc.). ** Jargon buried in legalese, what a genius way to get just about anyone to agree to just about anything! If only John, King of England (in 1215), had been more skilled in the ways of the EULA - perhaps "King Charles III" would be emperor of the world now. Oh utopia denied ... kek.
• pr0zac 3y ago
  I am not at all surprised to see one of the emails you got matches exactly (other than the extension name) one from the linked post. Definitely a lot of this crap is heavily automated. > I'm a fan of [extension name] and I really like how convenient and useful it is. > Have you considered offering promotional spots to those interested in promoting their products on your extension? I'm interested in promoting my own extension on [extension name] and would love to discuss this possibility with you. > Let me know if you're open to this.
  • aopell 3y ago
    Interesting, I've received this same exact message recently as well. I've maintained an extension with a few hundred thousand users for the last few years and I've received way more messages like this in the last year than ever before. Can't say I'm that surprised though.
• tommica 3y ago
  Man, being offered $11k for an extension would be hard to say no to... With that a down payment for a house is a much smaller problem. It's always a good idea to consider where the line is for ones own ethics.
  • Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    In a sense, poverty encourages corruption / corruptability; it ties in with the saying that everyone's for sale at the right price. I have a website, I'm sure it's worth money to someone. If someone were to offer me $1000? Piss off, i've paid more than that in hosting costs in the 15 odd years I've run it. 10K? Sounds compelling, I'll have to think about it. $1M? Fuck all of my online friends, I'm taking the money and cutting contact. It would be shit and I'd probably regret it, but it's a lot of money. But this kind of corruption is everywhere, and worst of all, it's permeated in politics. But subtly, in the form of campaign contributions, lavish parties and vacations, connections (i.e. lavish positions in company boards during or after a tenure in politics), never in the form of wads of cash passing hands.
  • delfinom 3y ago
    In the US, $11k may only cover submitting three months rent + security deposit to rent an apartment.