Amazon and Google Fight Bill That Prohibits Secretly Recording You (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Vice: On Wednesday, the Illinois State Senate passed the Keep Internet Devices Safe Act, a bill that would ban manufacturers of devices that can record audio from doing so remotely without disclosing it to the customer. But after lobbying from trade associations that represent the interests of Google, Amazon -- makers of the microphone-enabled Google Home and Alexa smart speakers, respectively -- and Microsoft, among other companies, the interests of big tech won out... In its current, neutered form, the bill provides exclusive authority to the Attorney General to enforce the Act, which means regular citizens won't be able to bring forward a case regarding tech giants recording them in their homes.
Ars Technica notes the move comes after Amazon admitted thousands of their employees listen to Alexa recordings -- "something not mentioned in Echo's terms of service or FAQ pages."

Vice points out that sometimes those recordings are shared "even after users opt out of having their data used in the program."

Comments

Eavesdropping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and other managers at Amazon and Google face jail time already for their crimes?

Re:Opt out by not buying and using these devices?

[darkain]

You mean like your cell phone? Because these have always-on listening capabilities too, now. How about laptops with built in microphones? It is seriously getting harder and harder to NOT have these devices, and that's the point of passing laws.

National bill, please

[PopeRatzo]

It's nice to see individual states trying to step up and pass this sort of bill, but I can't see those laws being very effective. This has to be a national effort, and an issue in the 2020 election. Politicians respond to pressure, and I'd like to see every Democratic candidate asked about this issue at town halls and debates.

I don't think it would matter if Donald Trump was asked about it, because, honestly, what are the odds of him giving a coherent answer, and what are the odds of his answer mattering one little bit anyway? You might as well ask my 8 year-old labrador retriever.

That is not already illegal?

[gweihir]

Because in any sane legal system, it is.

Did they at least call ii the "Big Brother" Act?

[Grog6]

"Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you" - Bowie

âoeBig Brother is Watching You.â

âoeWar is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.â

âoeThe best books... are those that tell you what you know already.â

âoeNow I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.â
â George Orwell, 1984

Truth isn't Truth. - Rudy Giuliani, speaking of Trump's Lies to America

Doesn't make sense

[jetkust]

Didn't they already consent to being recorded by buying a device that's entire purpose is to record them?