Reality check...where you live is generally a matter of public record. Now they just know that the person that lives there has an Amazon device. I'm more concerned of them hearing everything that goes on inside my home, then knowing info that can easily be found on the property appraisal site or the white pages.
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Employees Who Listen to Amazon Alexa Requests Can Access Customers' Home Addresses
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The non-human system has that info. Now that one weird guy in the office who people won't talk to also has it. He also thinks your wife sounds hot and she's too good for you.
I could make a thriller movie from this.
I wasn't making the statement based on any legal precedent but on a moral and safety of human life argument. Just because something is a law doesn't make it moral or right. Especially over 100 years later when society has changed very drastically.
According to the recent news outbreaks, Facebook is WAY WAY WAY worse than whatever Amazon/Apple/Google conjure up.
Nope, I just gone live in the nutty conspiracy theorist tin foil hat world where every corporation except Apple is evil and out to get me.
I live in the real world and don’t believe in slander by sites like this with selected excerpts from news stories. Also I understand controls that are in place with big corporations. And having an Echo Dot I also know how the damn thing works and what I can turn on AND off!
So wouldn't you be very happy, that you'd escape a murder charge on a technicality?
Moral judgement ain’t that different. End doesn’t justify the means, especially in a free society.
Makes me think about those tv shows where security cameras at the convenience store happen to catch a glimpse of some perp across the street - and the fuzz gets holt to the footage and strong arms the canary to sing.
Must see tv. I get it. That stuff never happens in real life. Or does it??
Does the po-po have the legal wherewith to acquire that private biz’s footage?
If so, then there’s probably a scenario under which the 5-0 could legally obtain the recordings of all the Alexa’s in that neighborhood and all the extraneous chit chat that you thought was “private” right along with it.
Hmm, wouldn’t this make sense? Amazon designed Alexa so you can quickly order things from Amazon.com, and guess what, it has to have access to your address to ship the products to.
This would be weird if Alexa is a separate company than Amazon. But it’s Amazon, and they already have your shipping address anyway.
This would be weird if Alexa is a separate company than Amazon. But it’s Amazon, and they already have your shipping address anyway.
I encourage all EU citizens with Alexa devices to file a complaint with their local DPA. Amazon needs to feel the consequences of this, and it needs to be reported; I would do it myself, but I never trusted them in the first place, and a DPA complain needs to be filed by an affected customer.
You might be missing the point. When they listen to you, the prior understanding was they had no idea who they were listening to.
Now we know that they cannot only hear you, but now they know in which house the things they are hearing are coming from.
There’s a difference with a non-human having access. The question is how many humans have access. As we’ve seen with Facebook these companies shouldn’t be given the benefit of the doubt.
Not without a warrant.
I wouldn’t use tv shows as good examples of how things work in real life (“shoot at the legs/tires” etc).
This scenario would certainly require a warrant.
Amazon is an e-commerce company. Employees of Amazon having access to your shipping address is nothing out of the ordinary. I mean I’m sure Apple employees also have access to your shipping address. That’s how e-commerce database work since they have a reason to have your shipping address (to know where to ship your stuff), and that you voluntarily gave it to them as well.
The Facebook thing, was it about the unencrypted password? That’s a different issue, and more about how companies should store passwords.
Being wary of privacy is important, but sometimes over paranoia doesn’t make sense either. The main issue here should be Alexa recording (and probably keeping) your voices and have people listening to them. The address thing imo is a red herring.
The only way they would hear it is, at least they say, if someone said “Alexa” before the murder took place.
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If you believe Apple, and no one has produced evidence against their statements, the folks that would be reviewing voicemail transcriptions or dictation results or Siri commands are not the same folks that would have access to your shipping address, iCloud etc. because there’s no reason for it. In fact if you believe Apple, any such data sent to them does so without any identifying markers in terms of the serial of the device, emails, phone numbers etc
Cook reiterated points that he and former CEO Steve Jobs made previously, that Apple's business model -- unlike Google, Facebook, and many other tech companies -- is predicated on selling physical products rather than capturing data about customers. "We've never believed that these detailed profiles of people that have incredibly deep personal information that is patched together from several sources should exist," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer -- if our customer was our product," he added. "We've elected not to do that."
Now that Amazon knows my address the next thing that could happen is they could send packages to my house! Think of the kids!
Just the same.
Sending the usage data to some server owned by some tech company. How is that any different?
Amazon: Dear Sir, we would like to update your address to speed up delivery of your order. Please provide us with the new details.
Me: Go past the big wadi, turn left in the first dirt road, then go past the big stone. Once you see the herd of camels, it's the second house on the right.
Where I live, we do not have street names or house numbers. Amazon's best shot is the warehouse used by DHL or Aramex, from where I collect my purchases.
USA seems to be the only country in the world that believes that companies can/will regulate everything itself. I am always amazed.
As they should, being responsible members of the human race, not tinfoil hat wearing basement dwellers
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Maybe on your planet every company you do business with doesn't have employees with access to your address and other data you seemed to be terrified about. Here they do, Many of those reps are in their bathrobes at home, some are in prison working for third party contracted companies. The posters brought out by these stories is truly entertaining, particularly the blinders they wear in their daily online, and public lives then a story throws them into hyperventilating mode.
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Exactly. And there’s been no smoking gun of proof that they are lying to customers. Where there is, we can talk about apple and Siri and will bash Cook etc as liars as they will deserve
Wow... who of thunk it? How could this possibly happen?
Answer: I fully expect that there is much more information available to these guys than just home addresses... let the user beware... no reasonable expectation of privacy when you send information into the cloud.
Answer: I fully expect that there is much more information available to these guys than just home addresses... let the user beware... no reasonable expectation of privacy when you send information into the cloud.
Add a fake address and dupe Alexa to record that you have gold bars hidden under your floors. See if any Amazon employees turn up wearing masks.