Amazon.com's Ring mishandled customers videos and will pay $5.8M fine

What fraction of their first quarter profit should Amazon pay for the alleged activities at Ring, all but one of which was before Amazon bought them? The last being within three months of acquisition.

Date: 1 March 2023

Title: Alex app not opening on iOS?

Author: kprecor

Body: This morning, I notice my Alexa app on my iPhone 13 is not opening. App Store doesn’t show any newer version. Anyone else having this issue?

Comments:

dalmarnock: "Delete the app, reboot your phone and re install it. A few have reported this. Runs fine on my iPad though"

> kprecor: "Thanks. That worked. Started asking me all kinds of initiation type questions about the users in my family and freaked me out. But looks like all my lists and devices are still there. Phew. Thanks for the quick response"

>> dalmarnock: "Yeah recent versions go thru all that on login. However, on the plus side, it looks like they might be starting to make some inroads into proper user profiles - in the USA version, different profiles can have their own default music service, profanity and Autoplay settings under music&podcasts. Supposedly they can link their own Pandora accounts as well, but surprisingly not amazon music or other services yet. At least it looks like they may be developing a framework for that - at last."

>> Muted_Sorts: "Because it is going to individually identify your family members and build profiles of them, even if they are underage?"

Drivingmecrazeh: "Yep bug has been filed with Amazon. No one should have to delete an app and reboot the device to reinstall it. I'll await a fix before doing this step. This clearly missed a QA unit test. The reviews on the app (sorted by most recent) are echoing what this thread is saying, too."

> kprecor: "It was definitely poorly rolled out. But if you really need to get into your Alexa App and can’t right now, I will say that deleting and reinstalling worked fine and caused no harm. It does ask you for some more info on yourself and members in your 'family', but it’s minimal and once done the rest works fine. You can always lie about the questions too if you are worried about what they are asking."

Looks like Amazon knowingly released updates to Alexa App (mobile app) that targeted children. Amazon would then create child profiles linked to the parent account. Amazon does this without ever providing clear disclosure of this by the person using the updated version of Alexa App. In addition, this means Amazon could in theory create profiles of ANYONE speaking near someone who makes use of Alexa App. Because Alexa is spyware.

From the linked article:

"Alongside the $25 million civil penalty, if approved by the court, Amazon will be prohibited from using children’s voice information and geolocation data subject to deletion requests for creating or improving any data product. Amazon will also be required to delete inactive child accounts on Alexa, notify users about the government action against the company and of its retention and deletion practices. Amazon will also have to implement a privacy program to govern its use of geolocation information."