From accessory to necessity
Headphones are a necessity, whether you’re blocking out background noise, jamming to your favorite tunes, or simply relaxing on a long flight, headphones are one of the first things we reach for in the morning when we’re packing up to head out for the day.
With the addition of many wireless headphone options, comes the freedom to move around tangle-free and without worrying whether or not we have enough cord to reach from the seat pocket to our ears.
Bose in the hot seat
Bose, a leader in high-quality audio, offers a great set of wireless headphones, however, amidst new allegations, they may be hard-pressed to sell them.
A Bose customer alleges, in an Illinois federal court, that Bose has been a party to illegal data mining.
In fact, as the lawsuit reads, when you use Bose wireless headphones, along with the Bose Connect app on your smartphone, Bose collects information about the songs you listen to and allegedly transmits this data, along with other identifying information to third parties without the user’s knowledge or consent and allegedly breaks federal wiretap laws, local wiretapping statute and fraud laws, and carries out “intrusion on seclusion,” which is also a crime in the state.
Illegal data mining
As the lawsuit alleges, “Indeed, one’s personal audio selections – including music, radio broadcast, Podcast, and lecture choices – provide an incredible amount of insight into his or her personality, behavior, political views, and personal identity,” says the complaint, noting a person’s audio history may contain files like LGBT podcasts or Muslim call-to-prayer recordings.”
This could give these third-parties a significant amount of information about the user.
Collection of data through the app
The Bose Connect app is a partner app intended to give the user more control over their devices. It works more like a remote control, than a music player. The Bose Connect app is used with the following Bose products: QC35, SoundSport wireless, SoundSport Pulse wireless, QuietControl 30 and SoundLink wireless II (all headsets), as well as, wireless speaker models SoundLink Color II, SoundLink Revolve and SoundLink Revolve+.
The headphones can be used without the app
However, the app allows the user to customize certain aspects and features to their preference, such as the level of noise cancellation, making it an attractive feature to Bose enthusiasts.
According to Fortune, the privacy lawyer who filed the Bose lawsuit, Jay Edelson, believes companies should not be able to help themselves to consumer data just because they can. Edelson stated, “companies need to be transparent about the data they take and what they are doing with it, and get consent from their customers before monetizing their personal information.” Bose apparently missed this crucial piece of the puzzle by not asking for consent to share consumers’ information.
Sharing without consent
“Plaintiff [Kyle] Zak never provided his consent to Bose to monitor, collect, and transmit his Media Information. Nor did Plaintiff ever provide his consent to Bose to disclose his Media Information to any third party, let alone data miner Segment.io,” the lawsuit reads. I imagine this is the sentiment many other Bose users will share.
Bose is not the only offender
Keep in mind, however, that Bose is certainly not the first company to experience data mining woes. In fact, when you download the Bose Connect app, you need to have both GPS and Bluetooth turned on to use it. Others claim, as a counterargument to Zak’s lawsuit, there’s a section in the software detailing Bose’s privacy policy that clearly states that the app collects data and sends it to third parties.
I implore you to read those privacy statements before clicking “I agree.”
I think the lesson here is to be mindful of what technology you use and how you use it. All the features of a wireless, connected world, certainly make life easier and oftentimes more enjoyable, but at what price? Do you know what information your devices are sharing? Have your read your privacy policies?
[clickToTweet tweet=”If you haven’t read your privacy policies you should as they are often data mining.” quote=”If you haven’t, you might want to take a peek at some of them, as they are often making a great deal of money from data mining.”]
At publication time, Bose had not released a statement concerning the lawsuit.
