Unsplash: frame_mediaA new app called Neon Mobile, which records phone calls and pays users for the audio, has climbed to the No. 2 spot in Apple’s U.S. App Store Social Networking category.
The app promises “hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year” by giving AI companies access to recorded conversations. Neon’s website advertises payouts of 30 cents per minute when calling other Neon users and up to $30 per day for other calls, along with referral bonuses.
Data from app intelligence firm Appfigures shows the app jumped from No. 476 on September 18 to No. 10 earlier this week, before hitting No. 2 on Wednesday. It also reached No. 7 and later No. 6 overall among top free apps and games.
Neon’s terms of service state that the company records inbound and outbound calls, but only saves one side of the conversation unless both parties use Neon. The data is then sold to AI firms “for the purpose of developing, training, testing, and improving” artificial intelligence systems.
Neon MobileLegal and privacy concerns
Experts say Neon’s approach may skirt wiretap laws. Jennifer Daniels, partner at Blank Rome’s Privacy, Security & Data Protection Group, told TechCrunch that recording only one side of the call appears designed to avoid requiring consent from both parties in certain states.
Cybersecurity attorney Peter Jackson of Greenberg Glusker added that the language around “one-sided transcripts” could leave the door open to broader data collection. Both Daniels and Jackson raised concerns about how truly anonymized the recordings are, with Jackson warning that voice data could be misused for fraud or impersonation.
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AI-focused apps have taken over the App Store ever since the growth of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other companies’ chatbots like Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude, and more.