Company Will Monitor Phone Calls to Tailor Ads

Anybody fancy signing up for this deal?   I certainly don't.

Company Will Monitor Phone Calls to Tailor Ads

By LOUISE STORY
The New York Times
September 24, 2007

Companies like Google scan their e-mail users' in-boxes to deliver
ads related to those messages. Will people be as willing to let a
company listen in on their phone conversations to do the same?

Pudding Media, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., is introducing
an Internet phone service today that will be supported by advertising
related to what people are talking about in their calls. The
Web-based phone service is similar to Skype's online service -
consumers plug a headset and a microphone into their computers, dial
any phone number and chat away. But unlike Internet phone services
that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media offers calling
without any toll charges.

The trade-off is that Pudding Media is eavesdropping on phone calls
in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the
conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, selects
ads based on what it hears and pushes the ads to the subscriber's
computer screen while he or she is still talking.

A conversation about movies, for example, will elicit movie reviews
and ads for new films that the caller will see during the
conversation. Pudding Media is working on a way to e-mail the ads and
other content to the person on the other end of the call, or to show
it on that person's cellphone screen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24adcol.html
(Registration required.)

Are they serious?

In time, all calls will be monitored this way so 'they' can then tailor which police to send to your house, i.e., DS, vice, Tax etc.

Any way Skype to Skype is free.