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MarketingVOX: A new company called Pudding provides free Internet telephony - in exchange for the right to listen to your calls and serve ads based on conversations you're having, reports The New York Times.
To some extent, Pudding Media's offering resembles those of Skype and other VOIP services. But it employs voice-recognition software that analyzes what users are discussing. Ads are then delivered to the participant's computer screen.
The company is also exploring emailing ads for targeting users after conversations have ended.
The technology has raised concerns from privacy advocates over how much and what type of information is being collected on people. While Pudding says its ad delivery model does not differ greatly from the way Google or Yahoo serve contextual ads from email "conversations," others aren't so sure.
Ads may be purchased on a per-click basis, but this may expand to an impressions-based model over time. Pudding Media is also looking for publisher partners that would be interested in offering free phone calls.
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