Many of the devices we have at home have microphones. They've crept in almost imperceptibly, quietly promising to help us with household chores or entertain us, requiring no more effort than speaking to ask for something. Smart speakers, connected screens, mobile phones, tablets, televisions, watches… practically every device has the ability to listen to us , but to what extent does this affect us?
The threat is confirmed
Amazon also has a short list of incidents involving the monitoring of user audio, even when no interaction is requested of its assistant, Alexa. This was the case with Ring doorbells , where recordings were viewed by some employees, ostensibly for quality control and service improvement. This excuse has become a common one when we want to express our interest in what we're discussing , and especially in what we want.
Now, a report by researchers from the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University claims that Amazon's smart speakers "listen" and "track" users, ultimately creating profiles to target their entire ecosystem of ads on Echo speakers. This data collection leads to inferring users' interests and subsequently focusing all ads in that direction, both on the devices and while browsing the web.
This would confirm the common belief that after discussing a topic that interests us, we end up seeing advertising everywhere we go, which isn't a good sign when it comes to keeping internet giants and advertising companies away from us. In the case of Amazon and its smart devices, there seems to be a special connection, one that the company itself has even openly acknowledged .
“Similar to what you would experience if you made a purchase on Amazon.com or requested a song through Amazon Music, if you ask Alexa to order paper towels or play a song on Amazon Music, the record of that purchase or song playback may inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads,” said company spokesperson Lauren Raemhild. “Customers may receive interest-based ads when they use premium, ad-supported content, such as music, radio, or news streaming.”
Your data, in the hands of many companies?
Another interesting finding of the analysis is that it reveals that the information obtained from our Echo devices ends up not only in the hands of Amazon, but also in the hands of some forty third-party companies specializing in advertising marketing: there is "strong evidence that smart speaker interactions are used for the purpose of targeting ads, and that this ad targeting involves a significant exchange of data between multiple parties ."
For its part, Amazon stated that “ many of the conclusions in this research are based on inaccurate inferences or speculation by the authors, and do not accurately reflect how Alexa works,” adding that “we are not in the business of selling our customers’ personal information and we do not share Alexa requests with advertising networks.”
The company continues its statement indicating that “[…] similar to what one would experience if making a purchase on Amazon.es or requesting a song through Amazon Music, if one asks Alexa to buy kitchen roll or play a song on Amazon Music, the record of that purchase or playback may be used to define the relevant ads to show on Amazon or other sites where Amazon publishes ads. Customers can opt out of receiving interest-based ads from Amazon at any time on our website.”
As always, at this point it's time to dust off our faith and believe one or the other depending on what seems most convincing to us.