美团、饿了么回应偷听质疑

China's food delivery apps Meituan and Ele.me denied eavesdropping on customers through mobile phone microphones to provide targeted ads, said Beijing Daily on Tuesday.

19日，《新京报》称，外卖app美团和饿了么否认通过手机麦克风窃听用户通话来提供精准推荐。

你遇到过这样的情况吗?刚说想吃什么、买什么，手机就出现相关商品的信息推荐。

惊不惊喜，意不意外!不少人怀疑：手机是不是偷听了我的话?

3月18日，《IT时报》对这一现象的报道将两家外卖平台推上风口浪尖。

On Monday, IT Times, a news provider focused on the digital industry, published a report suspecting that Meituan and Ele.me apps could be stealthily listening to users' private communications without their consent.

3月18日，数码电子类产业杂志《IT时报》发布了一项报告，报告怀疑美团和饿了么app在未经用户同意的前提下，偷听人们的私人谈话。

此消息一出，引起网友热议。

为此，《IT时报》的记者耗时三个月模拟用户的使用场景，对iPhone、Android手机和iPad上的美团外卖和饿了么app进行跟踪测试。

The report said when the author talked to others that she wanted to eat Japanese cuisine, the Ele.me app recommended a Japanese restaurant to her just two minutes later.

报告称，当记者和他人提及她想吃日料时，饿了么就会在两分钟后向她推荐日料店。

She then tested some other keywords, including "Hong Kong food" and "tea shop". Sure enough, a few minutes later, the author found the mentioned food was placed in the top of the app's restaurant suggestions, even though she had never ordered it before.

之后，她又测试了“港式茶点”、“茶馆”等关键词。果不其然，几分钟后，相关餐厅位列平台推荐榜首，而她之前从未点过这些食物。

从测试结果来看，在谈及某种食物后，打开外卖app出现相关推荐的概率高达60%-70%。

According to the author's 3-month research, more than 70 percent of food or restaurants that she talked about appeared in the recommended places on the two delivery apps.

记者历时三个月的调查发现，她曾提及的食物或餐厅超过70%都出现在两款外卖软件的推荐里。

细思极恐!不少网友表示，自己也有类似的经历。

对此，美团和饿了么均给出相关回应，否认存在偷听用户对话。

Meituan said that they never collected users' voice data to recommend services. Only when users are actively searching for food or restaurants, will they make relevant recommendations.

美团称他们从未收集用户语音数据来推荐服务。只有用户频繁搜索某些食物或餐馆时，美团才会做出相关推荐。

饿了么也回应道，所谓“监听用户日常对话并做信息分析”是一种无端猜测。

"Ele.me hasn't made such product settings, and from a technical perspective, the company is unable to do so," it said.

饿了么说：“饿了么没有此类产品设置，也不具备相关的技术条件。”

然而，专家意见却与之相左，称技术上可实现：

However, some tech experts disagree. Liu Quan, a senior researcher in China Center for Information Industry Development, told China Daily that there is no technical barrier for tech companies to make recommendations based on the voice information without users' permission.

然而，一些技术专家却不同意这一点。中国电子信息产业发展研究院高级研究员刘权告诉《中国日报》，科技公司未经用户允许根据声音信息做出推荐不存在技术障碍。

据称，若互联网公司未经用户允许擅自获取用户信息，将承担法律责任。

Zhao Lei, a partner lawyer at Beijing Zewen Law Firm, said that if internet companies obtain users' information without the latter's consent, that might violate the law, and could even bring criminal charges to the company involved. However, that would require very exact evidence, which could be hard to collect.

北京市泽文律师事务所合伙人律师赵磊称，如果互联网公司未经用户允许擅自获取用户信息，可能会违反法律，甚至会对涉事公司提起刑事诉讼。然而，这需要确实的证据，而这些证据很难搜集。