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Eero 'Not Changing a Word' of its Privacy Policy Under Amazon, Discounts Routers by $100 Today Only

How it feels:

> Trust us we'll continue to take care of your privacy. In unrelated good news we found another source of revenue and because we no longer have to profit from you we have discounted our products substantially! Look over here! Cheaper products everyone!
 
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Crzyrio said:
I never realized how dam expensive these are. WOW
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They may be expensive but they’re solid. I bought an AirPort Extreme ac Wi-Fi router years ago and it has been nothing short of solid. It may as well be wired Ethernet it’s so reliable. Eero has a great reputation as well for reliability. Would I buy them now that Amazon owns them ... maybe. Now, if it were Facebook I’d say hell no.
 
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Hmmm, never trust a huge company with your stuff. Their assurances are just words they spew to solve the PR crisis of the moment.
 
They sell a service to do filtering so they are already doing more than just wireless routing. Their software looks at where you go and classifies it. Amazon will be drooling over this data and won't ignore it. Let's see how long it takes for the first lawsuit.
 
Yeah, stay away from this. I don't put any Amazon listening devices (*cough* echo *cough*) in my house and I sure don't want them spying on my internet traffic. They can and likely will change the terms of service at some point. That being said, they've been pretty hands off with Ring for the past year (and it's on the outside of my house anyway), and I buy a certain subset of things on Amazon (mostly tools, tech, toys for the kids and office/daycare supplies for my wife) but I don't really care if Amazon knows about that stuff. Anyway, even if after all of that you're tempted to get this deal, know that WiFi 6 (ax) is coming soon and that's probably why this sale is happening. If you don't already have gigabit in your area, it might not matter, but if you already have fast internet then it's probably best to wait a bit and future proof if you're in the market for a mesh network. I didn't really need one until the last year when they upgraded my neighborhood.
 
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The only problem with these mesh Wi-Fi systems is that they all have minimal Ethernet ports. In this case, the boosters don't have Ethernet. I use an Apple AirPort system now (due for an upgrade,) and the fact that the AirPort Express boosters have an Ethernet is wonderful. I have a networked LaserJet printer that I use that unfortunately doesn't support WPA2, so it won't connect to my properly-secured WiFi network. So I use the Ethernet jack on my AP Express to connect it. (I also have a bookshelf stereo system with really good speakers there, so I use the AP Express' optical audio out jack for AirPlay to it.)

With these mesh systems, I'd have to move my laser printer. Not to mention, I'd just prefer to have things wired when they're all together next to an access point, to save Wi-Fi interference. (In my home theater setup where my modem is, there are eight devices that connect to the internet, six of them have Ethernet jacks. My AirPort Extreme base station currently feeds four of them by Ethernet, but I'd rather have them all Ethernet to save Wi-Fi bandwidth/interference potential for the Wi-Fi-only devices. (Heck, I might get a USB Ethernet adapter for my Switch so it doesn't use Wi-Fi when docked, too.)

At this point, I'm looking at an ASUS RT-AX88U as my "core router" and their GT-AX11000 as "booster" in the kid's room on the other side of the house (with one Ethernet to the kid's gaming PC, the other Ethernet running through the floor to my home office underneath, including the 2.5G Ethernet to my home server.) It's annoying, the "gaming" GT-AX11000 looks like it would be better as the core router, but it doesn't have enough Ethernet ports to live in the home theater setup the way I'd prefer, and having the 2.5G Ethernet near my home server would be preferred. (As it has a 10G Ethernet port.)

And Asus has a "mesh" set of boosters coming out later this year, if I want better higher-speed coverage down the road.
 
joshwenke said:
Even with the discount, the UniFi APs are still superior in price and performance.
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I contacted them about a year ago to ask if the AmplifiHD kit required any cloud account/login to make it work, and they told me absolutely not. I think they were the only company out of the four that I contacted that said that. Everyone else told me they required a cloud login, for "security purposes". No answer when I asked why I would need to log in to a remote server to access my local router, nor how such a login would make my home network "secure".

If my 7th gen Apple Airport goes nose up for any reason, and I can't find another one to replace it, I'll most likely get AmpliFi.
 
saulinpa said:
They sell a service to do filtering so they are already doing more than just wireless routing. Their software looks at where you go and classifies it. Amazon will be drooling over this data and won't ignore it. Let's see how long it takes for the first lawsuit.
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That isn’t true. eero does not record traffic information. If you use eero Plus, zscalar does get that information but that is the nature of dns. eero’s privacy policy makes it clear they don’t track your browsing history so Amazon has no way to use this info.
 
MacRumors said:
Amazon SVP of devices and services Dave Limp claimed that Amazon will "not change anything" about Eero, and that Eero is "not changing a word" of its privacy policy.
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They forgot "at this time" and/or "for now"

Too much scrutiny right now...much smarter play to let it all die down and have people even forget that big A is behind it all. Amazon lives off data way too much to resist this temptation long term.
 
bozzykid said:
That isn’t true. eero does not record traffic information. If you use eero Plus, zscalar does get that information but that is the nature of dns. eero’s privacy policy makes it clear they don’t track your browsing history so Amazon has no way to use this info.
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What part of what I said isn't true? Are you saying they don't look at and classify your traffic? They advertise they will be "checking the sites you visit"
How do you know they don't record traffic information? How else can they offer to send weekly emails about what was blocked if they don't record it? Also privacy policies get updated all the time.
 
CarlJ said:
And if you, the consumer, cancel your contract, presumably you're cut off from any future software updates and any data the router regularly pulls from the company in question. For hardware you give back at the end of the contract, or for software you stop using, not so much of a problem, but for hardware you purchase at a non-trivial cost that is associated with ongoing software "subscription", pulling out seems more tricky.
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Not true u still get firmware updates
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bag99001 said:
If I seem to have a perfectly working Airport extreme - is there any benefit to this type of purchase for me? Will I see any sort of performance improvement on my network?
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This product blew my airport extrem out of the water in coverage and WiFi speed no more dead spots also love erro plus I’m able to block all my sons products from adult content .
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Hermes Monster said:
Hoping this finally comes to the U.K. now
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It’s an amazing simple piece of tech
 
saulinpa said:
What part of what I said isn't true? Are you saying they don't look at and classify your traffic? They advertise they will be "checking the sites you visit"
How do you know they don't record traffic information? How else can they offer to send weekly emails about what was blocked if they don't record it? Also privacy policies get updated all the time.
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They don't look at or record the destination of any of your traffic. So they can't track what websites you visit. I think you are confusing zscaler with eero. Zscalar is not owned by eero. If you use eero Plus, zscalar is enabled by default. Otherwise, zscalar is never used. Either way, eero has no access to that information. Maybe you should read their privacy policy: https://eero.com/legal/privacy
 
chucker23n1 said:
Maybe in the US they can, but in the EU, that's a unilateral change of contract. Not only do you have to inform your customers in advance; you also give them a special right to cancel their contract expediently.
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bluespark said:
That's true in the U.S. as well. But with click-through agreements (which are not unilateral and are enforceable), those changes still can happen very quickly to the unwary.
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But what options do consumers have if they don’t agree with the new TOS?
 
acgmph said:
Which means you will have to stop using their product ("special right to cancel"). As this is not a subscription service, it's entirely your loss, not theirs.
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This is actually a question I have. If the provider unilaterally changes the contract, do I have a right to return the router and get my money back, if I no longer agree with the terms?
 
This is about trust. It's not that they can't but that they don't as far as anyone knows. The technology is there and all they have to do is enable it. Right now consensus is that they are clean. We don't know if or when Amazon will change that.
 
Val-kyrie said:
But what options do consumers have if they don’t agree with the new TOS?
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Well, you get a mandatory two-year warranty. The manufacturer is changing the terms on their end, so you don't get to use the product as originally intended when you bought it.

Seems like pretty good grounds to sue. They didn't have to change anything. They didn't go bankrupt or themselves depend on another third party. They just wanted to.
 
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