I already own other microphones, for example my smartphone, laptop, various earbud/microphone combos, etc.
I already trust all those manufacturers not to secretly upload everything I say to the cloud. Why is amazon any different?
I already trust all those manufacturers not to secretly upload everything I say to the cloud. Why is amazon any different?
With laptops, smartphones, earbuds, etc. they're not designed to be heard from across the room.. Or even in your pocket. Even when my phones on speaker across the room people will have problems hearing me properly. With Alexa, Google Home, and others, the microphones are specifically designed to hear you from a distance away, over music and other ambient noises.
Simply put, an Alexa or Google Home is a much more effective listening device.
What evidence do you have of this?
They're not supposed to upload "everything" you say, only the stuff you say after the wake phrase. The issue is that they're known to wake up and start recording when they're not supposed to, because they're not perfect about recognizing the wake phrase. There's also the fact that they have to be _listening_ all of the time in order to hear the wake phrase, and the security fear is that, due to a bug or malicious software, they could end up recording and uploading everything they hear as well. That's not a problem of the stated intent of the device, it's a problem of the latent capabilities being used improperly. The best way to secure the device is to remove those capabilities.
"You could hypothetically be giving up all your privacy if there are bugs, and in some cases there are known bugs causing you to give up a limited amount of privacy" is a very different level of threat from "you are giving up all your privacy to Amazon who will use it for ad targeting".
I'm willing to accept the former, in return for the amount of convenience I get from the device.
However, others in this thread are arguing that nobody should accept the latter, which is irrelevant because it's not the real situation.