"A new app offering to record your phone calls and pay you for the audio so it can sell the data to AI companies is, unbelievably, the No. 2 app in Apple's U.S. App Store's Social Networking section. The app, Neon Mobile, pitches itself as a money-making tool offering "hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year" for access to your audio conversations."
"According to Neon's terms of service, the company's mobile app can capture users' inbound and outbound phone calls. However, Neon's marketing claims to only record your side of the call unless it's with another Neon user. That data is being sold to "AI companies," the company's terms of service state, "for the purpose of developing, training, testing, and improving machine learning models, artificial intelligence tools and systems, and related technologies.""
"The fact that such an app exists and is permitted on the app stores is an indication of how far AI has encroached into users' lives and areas once thought of as private. Its high ranking within the Apple App Store, meanwhile, is proof that there is now some subsection of the market seemingly willing to exchange their privacy for pennies, regardless of the larger cost to themselves or society."
Neon Mobile offers to record users' inbound and outbound phone calls and pays per-minute rates and referral bonuses for audio. The app markets payments as "hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year" and lists rates such as 30¢ per minute for calls between Neon users and up to $30 per day for other calls. Neon's terms allow capture of calls and state the audio is sold to AI companies to develop and train machine learning and AI systems. The app's high App Store ranking indicates a segment of users willing to trade privacy for small payments.
Read at TechCrunch
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