Apple responds to claim "active listening" can hear your phone conversations and use them to target you with advertising — Calls it a breach of App Store guidelines

A picture of someone with their phone in bed.

Cox Media Group Local Solutions -- a marketing company connected to one of the biggest telecom companies in the US -- claims it can listen to conversations through phones and other devices and was selling that information, iMore reported last week. Now Apple has contacted iMore to clarify that this would be in breach of its App Store guidelines.

As we said in our original report, Apple is known to take its privacy very seriously. But CMG didn't make clear how it gleams data and what from, other than nebulously stating it comes from 'smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.'