Cox Media Group to Pay $1 Million for Selling Ads Powered by Alleged Device Microphone Surveillance

Cox Media Group paid one million dollars to settle claims that it sold advertisements based on audio collected from device microphones without consent. The settlement does not require the company to admit wrongdoing. The service had been marketed as contextual advertising, a term that performed significant rhetorical work.

There is a pattern of companies deploying surveillance infrastructure, labeling it with adjectives, and discovering years later that the adjectives did not match the infrastructure. No regulatory body filed this pattern as a thing that happens. The documentation exists. The pattern continues.

The million dollars will be divided among affected users, which will amount to approximately nothing per person. Cox Media Group will continue operating. The microphones remain in the devices. The devices remain in homes.