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Comment by spdustin | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Yes, I do. Because I am the paying customer, not the product being sold.

Wrong. You and your habits/data are the product for Amazon to sell/use. The box isn't the product.

It is an indisputable fact that I paid for my Echo, and that my information as a result of that purchase is used by Amazon, where they may profit from me when I purchase more products. I do not believe that Amazon grossly misuses my data; what reason do I have not to trust them? My value to them is derived from my purchasing decisions.

It is an indisputable fact that I didn't pay for Chrome, and Google doesn't care at all about what I buy because they're not selling me anything. My value to them is derived from the data I provide, in many cases, unwillingly.

So, respectfully, I'm not "Wrong", and it's presumptuous to say so.

In order to trust Amazon, you would also have to fully trust the government(s) that have the authority to force Amazon to do things.

Not really, you just have to trust that they won't make Amazon do the things you don't want Amazon to do. You don't need to have "full trust" in anybody, really. You just have to have enough trust regarding what you're concerned about. Trusting that a government will spend its education money on education, for example, has no bearing on whether or not they'd force Amazon to record you 24/7.

I don't think that works both ways.

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