Jump to content

Bose Wireless Headphones Spy On Your Listening Habits


Recommended Posts

  • CMS Author

An owner of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones has filed a "privacy infringement" lawsuit accusing Bose of collecting file names that he listens. As I interpret the article, the headphones themselves don't contact Bose, but work through an app on a mobile device or computer that's connected to the Internet. Along with the file name, the headphones also send their serial number. As long as the owner has registered the headphones (for warranty support), they know who you are and what you listen to. Obviously this is a marketable commodity to people who sell music, but there's another issue. Suppose you listen to a podcast about politics, or business, or drugs, an illness, or building pipe bombs. They also know that you're interested in those things. Creepy.

 

The filing also alleges that Bose wasn't just collecting the information. It was also sharing it with a data mining company called Segment.io

 

Here's a link to the full article in The Washington Post: http://tinyurl.com/kgqz3hr

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
An owner of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones has filed a "privacy infringement" lawsuit accusing Bose of collecting file names that he listens. As I interpret the article, the headphones themselves don't contact Bose, but work through an app on a mobile device or computer that's connected to the Internet. Along with the file name, the headphones also send their serial number. As long as the owner has registered the headphones (for warranty support), they know who you are and what you listen to. Obviously this is a marketable commodity to people who sell music, but there's another issue. Suppose you listen to a podcast about politics, or business, or drugs, an illness, or building pipe bombs. They also know that you're interested in those things. Creepy.

 

The filing also alleges that Bose wasn't just collecting the information. It was also sharing it with a data mining company called Segment.io

 

Here's a link to the full article in The Washington Post: http://tinyurl.com/kgqz3hr

 

 

I think what is concerning is the part you do not know, those areas that are never made public.

But come to think of it, I am not sure what any company would benefit out of getting my info because I simply never bite.

 

In 2003 I purchased a Kirby Vacuum from a sales guy who lived in the neighborhood. That was it.

 

Regardless, this does not take away from the fact that nothing is private.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • CMS Author

Well, I suppose it might get confused if I was wearing them when mixing a DAW project - not that I'd mix wearing Bose wireless headphones. But I'd be playing the file using software that knows who I am (so I can get updates).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

To me a far worse application is Google Hire. Rumor has it that Google is getting ready to sell your search results to any company that's interested in hiring you. Then again, I wonder about the accuracy of the conclusions it draws. For about a month, Google thought I was a single black guy living in Ghana. For another month it thought I was a cat owner because I went to buy some cat food for a neighbor.

 

If it checks my search results, it will likely conclude I have at least 100 different personalities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me a far worse application is Google Hire. Rumor has it that Google is getting ready to sell your search results to any company that's interested in hiring you.

 

That's a big class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. Googling what a prospective job applicant has posted online is one thing - it's their own words and they put them up of their own free will... but revealing what people search for and attempting to draw conclusions about them based on that is a unauthorized invasion of personal privacy, and I don't believe their TOS allows them to sell that information or discloses that they can / may do so.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...