Comment by spaceheretostay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaceheretostay | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

spaceheretostay

The people who are packing the boxes and knocking on your door don't have access to the microphones inside your house. Hearing conversations and search requests from customers is quite different from knocking on their door or packing a box.

Combining the knowledge of what you say inside with knowing where you live is different than the knowledge of a purchase you made and where you live.

Also, I would certainly assume Amazon to know my home address if I bought Alexa and shipped it there. But most people wouldn't assume that Amazon actual employees are listening to their conversations who also know where you live. HN might expect that, but Amazon makes a privacy promise that is violated here, as described in the article:

> In an April 10 statement acknowledging the Alexa auditing program, Amazon said “employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow.”

Bloomberg is saying that this statement by Amazon was false, because the location information from the Alexa devices can, in some cases, identify the individual or account "as part of this workflow".

To be clear: there's no assertion of real-time access to microphones anywhere. This is a quality team that has access to some presumptive subset of recorded data.

The headline and your interpretation are leaning very heavily on the "ZOMG SPYING!" angle, where... I honestly don't see it. This seems like pretty heavy spinning.

Yes, they should probably have a policy of scrubbing data better before voices get presented to human ears.

> Combining the knowledge of what you say inside with knowing where you live is different than the knowledge of a purchase you made and where you live.

Technically true, but... is it actually worse? I can see convincing arguments made either way, frankly.

> To be clear: there's no assertion of real-time access to microphones anywhere.

Well yes I know, I figure this data is likely years-old or whatever, I don't see how that matters? I didn't bring up real-time access and I'm well aware that Amazon doesn't (likely) even have that capability. Nobody here is asserting real-time access to microphones!

> Technically true, but... is it actually worse? I can see convincing arguments made either way, frankly.

Yes, it is much much worse, because it is a direct violation of their own statements about privacy. Amazon makes no statement about their box packers or labellers not knowing your address, because they obviously have to know that in order to put the label on or knock on your door.

But Amazon does make a privacy promise to not do what they are doing here. So they are totally different things and it matters due to customer expectation and their own written words.

Edit: I'm "posting too fast" and am not allowed to reply to the user below. I will state that I do care about privacy, I was simply taking the simplest debate stance to demonstrate that the two concepts are quite different (package delivery knowing your address and human reviewers of your voice commands knowing your address).

If you look at my comments on this article you will surely see that I care about privacy.

So... you're not actually concerned about "privacy" as such, just with Amazon's fidelity to their written policy?

Yeah, you're spinning here. The headline and your hyperbole above quite clearly want to frame this as a "Amazon is spying on your family" thing. And when challenged, you're retreating to a bland critique of their process adherence.

‘Just’ fidelity to a written policy about how they handle data from microphones in your house.

The point was: that worry (which, fine, you care a lot about) wasn't the one espoused upthread or in the linked clickbait. It was the fallback position for the poster when challenged on the "spying" angle that everyone originally started with.

So fine, Amazon didn't honor their agreement and they should fix it. They didn't spy on your kids.

You think it’s ‘Fine’ that amazon didn’t honor their agreement about how they handle data relating to the always on microphones in people’s homes?

If the don’t honor agreements about handling data it means means they can’t be trusted with that data.

> So... you're not actually concerned about "privacy" as such, just with Amazon's fidelity to their written policy?

Your response sounds crazy to me.

I absolutely care significantly about my ability to make informed decisions about my privacy. Such informed decisions are based upon having transparent and honest communication about the trade-offs.

It's like saying we shouldn't have a concept of informed consent when making a medical decision because I probably would consent anyway.

I should have the right to make an informed choice. I can do that if they are honest about their written policy. If they are lying about their written policy, then I no such choice is possible.

So, ultimately, yes, I'm absolutely concerned with Amazon's fidelity to their written policy. That's a huge issue!

If that hasn't changed, the people packing your box don't even see your name or address, the package gets automatically labeled at a later stage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com