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Privacy Businesses Your Rights Online

In the Ultimate Amazon Smart Home, Each Device Collects Your Data (washingtonpost.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Geoffrey Fowler, writing for The Washington Post: You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching you. No other Big Tech company reaches deeper into domestic life. Two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own at least one of its smart gadgets, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Amazon now makes (or has acquired) more than two dozen types of domestic devices and services, from the garage to the bathroom. All devices generate data. But from years of reviewing technology, I've learned Amazon collects more data than almost any other company. Amazon says all that personal information helps power an "ambient intelligence" to make your home smart. It's the Jetsons dream.

But it's also a surveillance nightmare. Many of Amazon's products contribute to its detailed profile of you, helping it know you better than you know yourself. Amazon says it doesn't "sell" our data, but there aren't many U.S. laws to restrict how it uses the information. Data that seems useless today could look different tomorrow after it gets reanalyzed, stolen or handed to a government.
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In the Ultimate Amazon Smart Home, Each Device Collects Your Data More

In the Ultimate Amazon Smart Home, Each Device Collects Your Data

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  • Data sales aren't the only worry - subpoenas are (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @03:24PM (#62963867)
    Data that doesn't exist can't be subpoenaed by cops, nosy divorce lawyers, etc and so forth. The less data created, the better for everyone. If the data is created, it can be disclosed.

    • Re: Data sales aren't the only worry - subpoenas a (Score:4, Interesting)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @03:46PM (#62963971)
      This is a part of the reason why I went to Apple HomeKit for my home automation needs. I have L2 switches, so all my home automation runs in its own VLAN along with my home surveillance. Then I put ACLs so only the Apple hub has internet access, my DVR can only be talked to by the internet / port it uses to talk to my mobile app. It has no ability to talk out to the internet at all (established, not new NATs). This way, nothing is monitored without my consent. My home bridge server serves as a middle man between Apple Hub and some devices that are not HomeKit compatible.
      • I went the Google Nest route myself. Which is sad, because I like some of the Ring gear, but damn, the privacy concerns!
        • Take a look at Doorbird. A bit pricey, but they fully support common standards like RTSP and SIP, so while you can make use of their cloud service, you can also fully run this thing through your own setup if you prefer that. The hardware is pretty good as well though not as sleek as Ring, but the camera is great. I still get a good and bright color picture from that, way after all the other outdoor surveillance cams have switched to infrared.
          • Those look like you can't just rip them off the wall like you can a Ring doorbell, but you were right about them being really pricey!
    • The Roomba doesn't track whether or not it's cleaning up blood stains... yet.
      • If it has a camera, it can track if a not-your-spouse is visiting when spouse is on a business trip. Bad enough.
        • You made be look it up. Yes, the Roomba J7 has a front-facing camera. I didn't know that, and yes, that sounds like a really bad idea from a privacy standpoint. Of course, I wouldn't buy a Roomba anyway because I have crap all over the floor. And pet owners have learned that Roombas make having your pet crap on the floor infinitely worse!

  • Two thirds of Amazon shoppers are idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @03:35PM (#62963927) Homepage Journal

    People just assume that not much data is stored, and that it is used ethically. They keep on assuming this until there is a Cambridge Analytica scandal to inform them otherwise. Then they get mad and demand action for a little while. Then everything goes right back the way it was.

    Those of us who assume that abuse is rampant anywhere it is possible are regarded as paranoid. The fact that we are right does not change this.

  • I'll take care of it. (Score:3)

    by slipped_bit ( 2842229 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @03:59PM (#62964039) Homepage

    Siri, tell Google to kill Alexa.

  • Amazon says all that personal information helps power an "ambient intelligence" to make your home smart.

    Consumer: Move now, I'm going to service.
    Amazon: Please remain indoors. This is for your own protection.

    • I have 5 switches. 1 doesn't even work. Beyond some rudimentary boolean logic stuff, I don't see how that would make my home smarter.
      Maybe adding the 7 light fixtures I have in total doubt will help much.

      But you can make children for less then the cost of a smart device.
      Maintenance fees will prolly be similar in the long run. With all the kill of the old products to make way for the new.

      • But you can make children for less then the cost of a smart device.

        That doesn't sound right. I doubt you could get a kid to the age of being able to flick the switch for you without spending thousands and thousands of dollars, even if you're being horribly neglectful. Not to mention the time they require.

        Come on, we're nerds. Gotta think of the practicalities.

        • Yes, the making part is cheap but the maintaining isn't.

          Maintenance fees will prolly be similar in the long run. With all the kill of the old products to make way for the new

          That is why I added that.

  • Breaching the perimeter (Score:5, Funny)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @04:17PM (#62964091)

    In the olden days, advertisers could only collect data about what we did in our browsers and they didn't like the fact that they couldn't see our activity outside of the virtual world - the physical walls of our houses stopped their attempts pretty damn well. So they invented smart homes. Under the guise of convenience, they can now snoop on what we do in the shadows, and one day, when they've collected enough data and all the smart devices become an inseparable part of our homes, they will roll out their favourite marketing warfare device of the modern times - monetisation. You will start seeing ads on your fridge. They will be played when you're having a shower. Little Alexa robots will roll towards while you're taking a shit and ask if you'd prefer a different brand of the toilet paper because judging by your moans and your bowel movement patterns the current roll is giving you hemorrhoids. And there will be f... all you'd be able to do about it, because will have already breached the perimeter and there will be no dumb devices available on the market anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Any smart home solution that requires me to log in anywhere, or needs an account with anyone, will never be in my house.

      • Same.

      • Any smart home solution that requires me to log in anywhere, or needs an account with anyone, will never be in my house.

        And don't go to houses that have this crap installed. And if you're ever looking for a new house, let the agent know that it's a condition of purchase that there is no "smart home" crap in there.

        It's creepy as hell, and it's often not even "AI," just a bunch of humans working for peanuts: https://www.abc.net.au/news/sc... [abc.net.au]

        XKCD has a lighter take on it: https://xkcd.com/1807/ [xkcd.com]

        • Very fitting XKCD. I'll add it to my quick access cache of other XKCDs that I regularly spam my coworkers with. B)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      there will be no dumb devices available on the market anymore

      This.
      I see everyone responding "over my dead body" but realistically it will change when no dumb devices are easily available. I won't buy a spying device for convenience or even a discount. However I may have to do so eventually, when nothing else is available on the market.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      Tech is fine. Smart homes are fine. There's nothing about smart homes in general, which invades your privacy. Find a counter-example and invariably it always has the same basic flaw: it's proprietary.

      This isn't a special case. Smart home tech is just like all the other tech you use, in that it highlights the same damn issue which set RMS off in the 1980s. The proprietary stuff is intended to fuck you over in some way, and the Free stuff is not.

  • They also know when I've been click-baited into reading a WaPo article and where from.

  • The Nissan Ariya, that I have test driven, has an Alexa option, as do a few other recent EVs. There is NO reason for any voice driven or other system to release data external the local device or vehicle, something I believe Google are slowly introducing, and Apple allow us to control via Siri options. I appreciate Amazon's eCommerce chops and the Kindle, but they need to develop home and other automation tech where the user's profile is ONLY stored on the user's device, electronic 'key' and/or other. Else t

    • I appreciate Amazon's eCommerce chops and the Kindle, but they need to develop home and other automation tech where the user's profile is ONLY stored on the user's device, electronic 'key' and/or other. Else they will face a backlash.

      Found the new guy!

      In the first place, Amazon is in it for Amazon, and will drive delivery trucks over our dead bodies if it improves their bottom line. So no, Amazon will NEVER put control of user data in users' hands.

      In the second place, with two-thirds of American shoppers having at least one of Amazon's smart devices, it's pretty obvious that enough "backlash" for Amazon to even notice is NOT coming any time soon, if at all.

  • Two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own at least one of its smart gadgets

    That means that two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon are utterly fucking stupid and/or have their heads up their asses. I'd say "to hell with them, let them suffer the consequences", if it wasn't for the fact that they're Judas goats. As a result of their actions, we're ALL being 'rewarded' with an exponential increase in surveillance AKA privacy rape.

    • "two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon are utterly fucking stupid"

      What? in general? or because they shop at Amazon?.

      We (the royal we) have a prime A/C purely for the delivery, but will be cancelling in the near future coz Amazon is fucked, searches are just adverts and mostly irrelevant, prices are 20 to 30% inflated, presumably to cover delivery costs, and "same day" just isn't.

  • Courage (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Thursday October 13, 2022 @06:10PM (#62964459)
    A paper that criticize Amazon, in the Jeff Bezos owned Washington Post. That is courageous.

  • Sure, let's talk about the assistant that rests in my garage spying on me whenever I sometimes go there.... but not a word about Apple and Google sitting in my pocket every day of my life spying on me and my whereabouts every single moment of my waking hours.

  • I keep my home as "dumb" as possible as to NOT share my personal data.
  • This is why people should use open source home automation solutions. Well, one reason. Another is big tech's tendency to abandon these platforms and brick the devices. Or change the terms and start charging [more]. Or spying. Or security leaks. Or any of a dozen other problems. Look at Home Assistant for an alternative.

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