On the Capture and Use of Private Conversations on Mobile Phones for Marketing Purposes: A Case in the Tourism Sector

The digitization of the Broadband Society is generating a profound debate on access to users’ browsing and personal data. An axis of controversy is the case of mobile telephony. Many people suspect that smartphones record users’ conversations, without their consent, through the microphone, subsequently providing data to companies so that they make personalized announcements regarding the topic of conversation. In addition, there are various authors who argue that large internet companies use artificial intelligence to analyze these huge volumes of captured data in order to classify users and create accurate profiles. The objective of this research, of an experimental nature using participant observation and discussion group techniques, is to find out and analyze the phenomenon of capturing conversations for commercial purposes, to try to verify how they specifically affect the tourism sector. The study concludes that different companies in the tourism sector collect and use conversation data both to create profiles and detect patterns of behavior and to offer related advertising. Likewise, it is concluded that in certain cases the consumer becomes aware of the mechanism, and discomfort is generated that could even negatively affect the advertised brand.