I feel like it's a corporate surveillance device. Same goes for similar products by different manufacturers.
When the technology (NOT any particular product) eventually reaches "general public use"[1], the test established in Kyllo v United States[2] means that the government does not need a warrant to use their own devices that use the same technology to see "details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[1].
Corporations pushing their surveillance devices will change where privacy is expected. The market cannot fix this because Amazon et al can still damage my future 4th Amendment protections simply by selling their surveillance devices to other people.
In Kyllo, the question was whether the general public used thermal imaging to look at people. Even if every household had an Alexa, that doesn't mean the general public uses Alexa to listen to people (just that Amazon does).
By your logic, the Kyllo decision should have been the opposite since the general public does emit unshielded heat signatures (slash use voice assistants) but doesn't observe those signatures (slash/process receive voice assistant requests).
Two lawyers I've talked to about agree with my interpretation. Dan Geer has also been warning[1] about the consequences of the Kyllo decision.
> that doesn't mean the general public uses Alexa to listen to people
The Kyllo decision doesn't dep[end on the use, only if the public is generally familiar with the technology. I linked to the court's opinion in my previous [1]; the complete opinion is at the end of section (b) on the first page:
>> obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home's interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical "intrusion into a constitutionally protected area," Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 512, constitutes a search--at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use.
The court did not specify how the general public was using the technology or the purpose for using it. Justice Stevens dissent specifically addresses this problem
> Despite the Court's attempt to draw a line that is "not only firm but also bright," ante, at 12, the contours of its new rule are uncertain because its protection apparently dissipates as soon as the relevant technology is "in general public use," ante, at 6-7. [...] it seems likely that the threat to privacy will grow, rather than recede, as the use of intrusive equipment becomes more readily available.
> the general public does emit unshielded heat signatures
This is irrelevant. Of course they do. However, the court observed that the general public \ was not using thermal imaging cameras to receive those emissions, and thus the had an expectation of privacy about their heat signatures. Note that this expectation co9ud change if most cellphones start including the newer "multispectral imaging" devices.
> but doesn't observe those signatures
People using an Alexa do expect that some of their speech will be recorded and transmitted to a large business over the internet.
I'm torn in the thought. At face value, I can't but agree. However, I also enable crash reporting in many applications. Have for years. Firefox gets usage stats. At some point, I have to wonder why I trust one group of people and not another. More, have the groups I trust changed out from under me?
I think the thing to realize is that trust is inherently faulty. Trust requires some level of unproven belief. This is why it has to be earned and why it is so easily broken.
I think the better way to put it is that you shouldn't really "trust" any company (or anybody that has motivation to exploit you) 100%.
You can establish different qualifiers to trust, as well. For example, I (currently) trust using my Echo for small calculations and timers. If Amazon were to sell that data to 3rd parties, I would trade that bit of privacy (about my timer usage) for the convenience. The moment I see anything about Amazon doing an "always listening/recording even without the wake word", that thing is getting unplugged or thrown away. (if this is already a KNOWN thing, somebody please tell me)
tl;dr trust isn't an all-or-nothing proposition.
I do the best I reasonably can, in regards to privacy and trust. When I identify an issue, such as a privacy hole I wasn't aware of, or a company that proves itself undeserving of trust, I update my approach. Maybe I'll have to migrate some services or buy a more privacy-focused alternative, maybe revise which information I provide in user profiles, but I think that's worth it.
You gotta start somewhere.
I also have a robot vacuum cleaner, but I don't connect it to my network. Too much potential information can be gleaned from a floor plan and the obstacles around the house. You'll never get me to install one of those telemetry devices in the OBD port on my car for any company. I don't care how much money it will save me on my phone or insurance plan.
Is it all rational? Of course not. My personal policy concerning my personal data is a mish-mash of contradictions, because it's fatiguing to be on the offensive 100% of the time. For example, getting a Nest thermostat is something that I want, but I don't want it phoning home to cloud servers. It's heating/cooling data about my house. That's probably some of the most innocuous data you could have about someone, yet if it isn't self-hosted, I don't want it. Yet Maps has tons of location data on me, Gmail holds my emails, and I have plenty of conversations over Hangouts.
Contradictions all the way down.
i.e. you are very protective of information about the inside of your house: floor plan, temperatures. Makes sense considering it's your home).
Seems like the same thing with the car, though. It seems like you think of the inside of the car or the workings of the car as a more private space than where the car has gone?
Emails and Hangouts conversations are harder to pin down. Could be that they are more abstract and harder to maintain a concept of private vs public spaces on the internet? Could also be that there aren't really any alternatives that provide an obvious privacy benefit for their cost/effort.
Less than $15/month for full-featured IMAP email and groupware for an individual. Is it super cheap? No. But you can't argue with their privacy track record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolab_Now
(I'm not affiliated, in fact I migrated from them to a different provider that also does web hosting. But I was very satisfied while I was a customer)
My email for my custom domain is on FastMail, but I have a couple of gmail addresses that would take a long time to get fully migrated over.
The company I work for also uses GSuite, so I can't really escape it, anyway...
Totally agree. I don't feel like it would be 'saving' money either.
My FB usage is now scaled down to basically just an event RSVP service with a few token page subscriptions for bands and venues. I've removed all photos and videos, cleared out all profile information, set visibility on everything to "just me" or "friends only", and I've untagged myself from everything I was ever tagged in. Yes, I know FB is probably keeping a lot (all?) of that in their archives for an indeterminate period of time, maybe the EU "right to be forgotten" can help with that.
I've replaced Google search with Startpage and I've migrated my email, calendar and contacts from GMail/GCalendar to a paid hosting/email provider, with my own personal domain name.
My phone is still running stock Android 7, but I've significantly cut down the amounts of apps installed, I much prefer to use web versions in Firefox with a decent lineup of privacy-protecting and tracking-inhibiting extensions. Some mobile web sites are really shitty about forcing their apps on you, but I'd rather just do without them. Obviously on the desktop, Firefox with the appropriate extensions is the browser of choice.
I refuse to get any "smart" devices, they're not welcome in my home. I'm working on replacing my Chromecasts, if nothing else I'll just use my laptop and an HDMI cable. For music in my kitchen/bathroom/basement, I've got a decent BT speaker instead.
Kicking the Google/FB/whatever dependency is hard.
I guess part of the reason is I started using GMail, Google Maps and Facebook long before I developed my cynicism towards our market reality[0]. It's way too much effort to drop GMail now, Google Maps are way too convenient, and most of my real-life acquaintances are on Facebook.
But I strongly avoid introducing any new SaaS and other spyware software in my life now.
--
[0] - I should say "cynicism towards tech industry", but it's not really about technology per se - it's about regular market incentives that fuck up everything, regardless of the technology involved.
I was actually feeling quite irritated this morning because I have to sign in to use Visual Studio - in order to have my settings. I don't know what stuff they collect, but it's not nothing because they can for sure track my sign ins.
You raise a great point about who we trust. I feel okay trusting Microsoft, but there's no way in hell I'd trust Google or Amazon.
Recently I got a Razer Orbweaver, heavily discounted, and installing the drivers for that required me to create an account with Razer and install "Razer Synapse". I went along with it thinking that it would at least give me one package to keep drivers and options for all three of my Razer devices in one place. But it doesn't, Synapse only recognizes the Orbweaver, the other two Razer peripherals still need their own dedicated driver and software packages installed.
Synapse phones home all the time when booting up it tells me how it's connecting to the "Synapse cloud". Sounds really fancy and all but what use is that if it can't even get drivers for other Razer devices from the "cloud"?
This feels like getting all the disadvantages but none of the advantages.
I couldn't have said it better. It's funny because I'm totally cool with having an account provided it does things like gives me access to software, drivers, tools, backups, whatever. But yeah, I'm not going for it if it's just an excuse to vacuum up data. It's gotten to the point where I actively avoid companies/products that just don't get the message.
To this point, I switched from Google to Microsoft a few years ago because I really got sick of feeling like my personal data was just making them richer in exchange for nothing. Email and web apps aren't worth the loss of privacy.
At first Bing search was a bit weird, but then it turned out that it worked just as well as Google for most things, and better for some.
But in regards to private data, the parent does have a point. Google's main business is aggregating data for ad purposes, selling their users privacy is how they make most of their money, you wouldn't expect anything else from them.
MS does some of that too, but they make most of their money through other means, so they have less incentive of disrespecting their user's privacy. Even more so considering the PR blowback if it should ever turn out that Windows spies on its users so MS can sell that data.
I feel curious as to why that is.
Is it because you know Microsoft is blatantly in it for the money, meaning you are the direct customer. As opposed to Google/Amazon/Facebook, where you're the product?
I definitely don't trust Google, Amazon, or Facebook at all. I'm only on Facebook a few times a month, and only from my computer. Never from my phone. No way in hell I'd ever install the FB surveillance app. FB is on probation with the FTC until when? 2030? They're an evil bunch of jackasses.
IMHO, Amazon is the most sociopathic of the big four/five. They don't invade my privacy (because I don't let them), but I think they're pretty evil. I mean, Google is sort of soft evil whereas Amazon is WalMart level evil.