"How much of your life have you lived with a smart speaker listening in on you? The original Google Home turns 10 later this year, and Amazon Echo's been around even longer. For as convenient as this kind of smart home hardware can be, are we sacrificing too much of our privacy by having it around? That old question is back on our minds again this week, as we get word about some big progress in a class-action Google Assistant privacy lawsuit."
"When we search for a product with Google, it's understood that we're likely to get served relevant advertising. And that extends to things you talk about with Assistant. However, the plaintiffs in this action noticed that they were getting ads based not on anything they explicitly asked Google about, but conversations that Assistant appeared to record after mishearing an "OK""
Google agreed to a preliminary $68 million class-action settlement over claims that Assistant recorded user conversations during false activations and used those recordings to target advertising. Plaintiffs alleged that Assistant misheard wake words, captured speech without user intent, and that that speech influenced ad targeting. Smart speakers rely on wake-word detection and mic-cutoff features to protect privacy, but false activations can bypass those protections and expose private conversations. Google denies any wrongdoing despite agreeing to the settlement. The case follows a lengthy legal process focused on privacy risks from inadvertent recordings and ad personalization.
Read at Android Authority
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