Amazon Is Always Looking Out

Amazon may be testing customer comfort with the amount of information a company should have about our lives and maybe shifting our tolerance.

Jonathan Collins, an analyst with ABI Research, stated that while the breadth and scope of the company’s consumer offerings might be a concern, many will simply accept the compromise for convenience.

He stated that “by and large, negative consumer attitudes towards data collection across smart homes and other areas have been largely ameliorated by services received in return.” “Even though it is not explicitly stated, there is a tradeoff between cheaper or free services and data sharing and collection that supports them.”

Stephen Beck, the founder of consultancy cg42 and managing partner, stated that customers’ views “will likely stay unchanged after Amazon’s event because items such as a TV or smart speaker feel familiar and don’t pose obvious, new threats to privacy.”

Amazon is known for stealing user data without the knowledge of consumers. reports in 2019 revealed that Amazon had been recording conversations from Alexa users, which were sometimes reviewed by humans. After backlash, Amazon altered its settings to allow people to opt out explains on its website that its latest products are designed to only detect the chosen wake word. No audio is sent to the cloud or stored unless it detects the word. The company also stresses that the sensor data Astro uses to navigate its home is processed on the device and not sent out to the cloud. Also, the robot streams only video and images to the Cloud when Live View is enabled in the Astro app.

According to the company, the Halo Rise sleep tracking device encrypts all data and stores them in the cloud.

Users can later download or delete it. Amazon’s ongoing rollout of products that monitor customers in varying degrees is happening at a moment when many Americans have more reason to be conscious of data collection due to the changing legal landscape surrounding abortion. Experts in digital rights have warned that law enforcement agencies could use search histories, location data, and messages to investigate or prosecute abortion-related cases.

Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and a fellow at NYU School of Law. “The danger of tracking has never been more clear,” he said. “Most customers don’t think about the possibility that the information they provide to companies could be misused by hackers and governments.”

Although some of the new features, like Astro’s increased monitoring for doors and windows, are intended to make people feel safer in their homes, Cahn is concerned that these seemingly minor updates could also encourage people to get deeper into Amazon’s ecosystem.

Cahn stated, “Fortunately,” “even if you teach an old robot dog new tricks, it’s impossible to change one fact: It is still creepy.”