On May 21, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that it had reached settlements with Cox Media Group and two smaller marketing firms, requiring the firms to pay a total of $930,000 in connection with allegations that they deceived customers by falsely claiming to offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers’ smart devices, and that consumers had opted into such targeting.

In three separate complaints, the FTC alleged that the marketing firms claimed to use a special algorithm to listen in on and detect pertinent conversations from third-party smart devices and apps to target ads to consumers within a specific geographic region. The FTC, however, alleged that these claims were deceptive because the marketing service was not based on voice data, but instead the service consisted of selling email lists obtained from other data brokers. The firms also claimed that consumers had opted into these services by agreeing to third-party terms of service. The FTC took issue with these claims, alleging that, even if the “active listening” services had functioned as advertised, clicking through mandatory terms of service would not constitute “opt-in consent” to collect and use data collected from inside consumers’ homes for these purposes.  

In addition to the collective $930,000 in fines, under the proposed settlement orders, each of the three firms will be prohibited from making representations about:

• the qualities or features of its advertising or marketing services;
• the collection and use of voice data and whether consumers have provided their consent to collect, use or disclose their voice data; and
• the geographic targeting capabilities of its advertising or marketing services.