Bizarre app that pays you to share your audio calls hits #2 in App Store social apps

5 hours ago 1

Bizarre app that pays you to share your audio calls hits #2 in App Store social apps | Promo graphic

A bizarre app that invites you to record and share your audio calls so that it can sell the data to AI companies has become the second most downloaded social app in the app store.

Neon Mobile says that users can sell their privacy for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year by allowing their audio conversations to be used for AI training …

TechCrunch spotted the app’s raid climb up the App Store charts.

The app first ranked No. 476 in the Social Networking category of the U.S. App Store on September 18 but jumped to No. 10 at the end of yesterday [and by] Wednesday morning had became the No. 6 top app.

In its marketing materials, the company argues that AI companies use your data for training, so why shouldn’t you get paid?

Telecom companies are profiting off your data, and we think you deserve a cut. With your consent, we process your call recordings, remove all personal info, and sell the anonymized audio to companies training Al.

The company pays users $0.15 per minute, rising to $0.30 a minute when you’re calling other Neon users. It says you can earn up to $30 per day.

Neon says that only your side of the call is recorded unless both people are using the app when it will record both sides.

When you make a call through the Neon app, it’s recorded. If you’re the only Neon user on the call, we’ll only record your side. If both people are using Neon, we’ll record both sides—as long as at least one person starts the call in the app. Don’t worry, our technology automatically filters out names, numbers, and other personal details.

There’s an interesting note in the privacy policy.

If you delete the Neon app (but do not close your Neon account), your calls can still be recorded when other Neon users who have the app call you. If you want to stop call recordings with other Neon users, close your account through your profile settings.

Some experts have noted that the company is very vague about only recording one side of the conversation.

Peter Jackson, cybersecurity and privacy attorney at Greenberg Glusker, [told] TechCrunch that the language around “one-sided transcripts” sounds like it could be a backdoor way of saying that Neon records users’ calls in their entirety but may just remove what the other party said from the final transcript.

The company’s terms and conditions also seem to allow it to do pretty much anything it likes with the data.