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Amazon Won't Say If It Hands Your Echo Data To the Government (zdnet.com)
Zack Whittaker reports via ZDNet of how Amazon still won't say whether or not it hands your Echo data to the government -- three years after the Echo was first released. From the report: Amazon has a transparency problem. Three years ago, the retail giant became the last major tech company to reveal how many subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders it received for customer data in a half-year period. While every other tech giant had regularly published its government request figures for years, spurred on by accusations of participation in government surveillance, Amazon had been largely forgotten. Eventually, people noticed and Amazon acquiesced. Since then, Amazon's business has expanded. By its quarterly revenue, it's no longer a retail company -- it's a cloud giant and a device maker. The company's flagship Echo, an "always listening" speaker, collects vast amounts of customer data that's openly up for grabs by the government. But Amazon's bi-annual transparency figures don't want you to know that. In fact, Amazon has been downright deceptive in how it presents the data, obfuscating the figures in its short, but contextless, twice-yearly reports. Not only does Amazon offer the barest minimum of information possible, the company has -- and continues -- to deliberately mislead its customers by actively refusing to clarify how many customers, and which customers, are affected by the data demands it receives.
Privacy conscious people don't buy Echo, Alexa, Google home, etc. These people don't care at all if their home is a public square. The other people should just stay out of it and mind their own business.
Note: cell phones and even laptop mics aren't very omnidirectional.
I have participated in many conference calls around a cell phone sitting in the middle of the table. It works pretty well.
A cellphone is a far bigger privacy hole, and you are just in denial because you have too much self esteem invested in feeling superior by not owning an Echo.
connected to your shopping account and CC.
The gov gets the math of every unique consumers voice.
Its not spying as its not the content of a conversation and the consumer agreed so they could use the service. Just the math to find a person again for the ads.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"