Eavesdropping Devices for Targeted Ads Make Questionable Financial Sense: Kapersky

The economics of marketers supposedly listening in on private conversations via users' smart devices and then targeting those individuals with ads don't hold up, cybersecurity services firm Kapersky blogged Tuesday. Clients would have to spend too much annually on individual users, it said. In addition, it said constantly analyzing audio streams from millions of users would need massive computing power "and be financial folly." But the economic case might be different for devices that already listen to voice commands, such as smart speakers or smartphones with voice assistants permanently on, it said.