this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 55 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

The most concerning part about this article is that they put one in their nine-year-old's bedroom.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They work great as an intercom, if you have them in every. Room

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 hours ago

Yeah, an intercom between you, your kids, and Amazon.

[–] tal 26 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Based on the article, it lets her ask them things that she doesn't want to ask her parents, though I'm not sure that if I were 9 years old that I'd suddenly want to discover that my parents have a list of everything I've asked it and are reading through it, much less that Amazon has a database.

[–] FourWaveforms@lemm.ee 4 points 3 hours ago

This seems like a bad idea, to me

[–] brot@feddit.org 13 points 6 hours ago

Yeah, that is a terrible violation of trust. A parent should stop listening when they find out that they have a copy of such conversations of their child. They shouldn't write a newspaper article with citations about it

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, that's a terrible idea.

[–] stevo887@lemmings.world -5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Why?

Edit: No one answers the question yet downvotes me for asking a simple question that wasn’t clearly answered in the article. That article really didn’t say anything outside of Amazon documents every prompt ever.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 16 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Because they have no idea why not to. Despite having written the article explaining that clearly.

[–] stevo887@lemmings.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Must have missed the part where the article explained anything clearly other than Amazon documents all your prompts.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] stevo887@lemmings.world -1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

That it’s listening and remembering when I talk to it? That’s not exactly spying on us.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

A couple of days later, I received an email containing links to gigabytes of information: particulars of every purchase I’ve ever made – from the noir novel I bought on the day that Amazon UK launched to the 28th pair of headphones acquired in as many years. Records of every page turn of every Kindle ebook I’ve opened, every moment of Prime content I’ve watched, measured by the second. And, of course, the details of every interaction we have ever had with our Echo; every question asked, every song requested, every timer set.

They don’t make it easy to find gold among the fields of data available for download.

That’s exactly what it is.

[–] stevo887@lemmings.world 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It gave him back every piece of data he had put into Amazon which was tied to a log in. Where is the spying? He willing did this and the whole piece felt like an observation more than a worry. Just my perception that though.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

"it gave him back every piece of data"

Back from where? Back from Amazon where it lives, after being collected from the writer's house. Where it is regularly used for algorithmic massage to better pluck dollars off of them and further direct their media habits.

Honestly, this is not hard.

[–] stevo887@lemmings.world -2 points 5 hours ago

Collecting data is different than spying.

[–] stevo887@lemmings.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Was there any indication that it was listening outside of being prompted? That’s just an assumption and would be no different than the phone we all have in our pockets most of the day.