What I discovered when I asked Amazon to tell me everything Alexa had heard
32 comments
·May 24, 2025threeducks
tocs3
Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that private information?
It feels a little strange at first but I suspect (correctly or not) that he has sought and received permission from the daughter first. Although I did not see any direct statement. The daughter is 18 or so now (maybe, adding up the times).
The article is as much about the humdrumness of family life as about what Alexa and Amazon hears. I am glad I read it. Puts life (and some parts of technology in perspective).
Ylpertnodi
>It feels a little strange at first but I suspect (correctly or not) that he has sought and received permission from the daughter first.
.
johnea
> Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that private information? And publishing it in a news article definitely crosses a line.
Well of course, only Amazon should have this info 8-/
This whole thing is truly disturbing.
And the millennial expectation that "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps should know everything", is by far the most disturbing part of all.
When in the next decade or two, people find themselves truly and irreversibly f_cked by corporate over-dominance, it will largely be their own fault...
MegaButts
> And the millennial expectation that "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps should know everything", is by far the most disturbing part of all.
Your experiences are very different from my own. I struggle to remember meeting anyone that thought this. Mostly people are just apathetic.
mschuster91
> Mostly people are just apathetic.
And apathy is what caused all of history's greatest crimes to happen. No matter which political ideology, which skin color, which age.
As for the argument of "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps should know everything" itself... I kinda get it. Google at least used to provide a decent service to the end users in exchange for all the data, but they've gone completely off the rails the last few years.
null
daveguy
Two questions,
1) What sensitive information was published in this article besides some superficial listening preferences and some Alexa interactions we have all had? I'm not sure identifying the extent of the use of the prefix "omni" is particularly sensitive information. It's not like anyone was divulging personal preference by asking for definitions.
2) What makes you think the author didn't run it by their family before submitting the story?
garbagewoman
To answer 2, a lack of any reference to permission being sought is the obvious answer
pessimizer
That private information is currently in the possession of an online bookstore, and he is her father.
dotancohen
Next time I need a facade for a society-wide surveillance system, bookstore it will be.
cluckindan
Out of curiosity, what was it last time?
daveguy
Bezos thanks you for your acknowledgement and service.
thrance
I mean, so is committing every sound ever heard through that microphone to a database used to train a voodoo doll of their daughter to better guess what she might be able to buy next.
jxjnskkzxxhx
Oh shit.... I never realized until now that's exactly what the point of Alexa is. I thought the point was like a different UI to Amazon. As in "being able to buy by clicking OR sounding must lead to a strictly larger number of sales than being able to buy by clicking only". So you can imagine my confusion on people telling me that Alexa isn't a good UI.
Of course. The point is to snoop on people to make better "recommendations". Dystopian.
techjamie
It can be both. Saying "Alexa, buy eggs" is a lot quicker and easier than loading up Amazon, finding the eggs you like which will probably be the top result for you, and clicking buy (or even Buy Now). Instead, it already knows your preferences in eggs anyway, so just by telling it, you can impulsively buy the eggs without even stopping what you're doing.
Then they get all that juicy "accidental activation" data on top of that.
Flemlo
That's not necessarily true.
Amazon is also a ecosystem. Alexa shows you notifications from Amazon like the status of a delivery. It's able to call others (great for family).
Amazon has also the fire kid tablet, fire TV etc.
And if I already use Amazon anyway I'm quite happy if Amazon would recommend me good products I like.
For plenty of things, Alexa is a very good UI.
cluckindan
I thought this was obvious from the name. The phonetics of ”Alexa” are very close to sentences such as ”I like” and ”he/she likes”.
dotancohen
[flagged]
dingnuts
There are a million places she could have overheard it. Our society is having a long conflict over sexual identities and the word may have come from any number of sources.
> What is this marketing, why is it happening, and is it widely accepted in that society?
What?
add-sub-mul-div
What you're missing is that people with a sexuality (or some other identity) different from yours exist in the world and don't need to hide themselves.
Your discomfort or offense makes you think that someone encountering a word means that it was "marketed" to them as opposed to that concept simply existing in society, where others will encounter it. Because identities other than yours can exist equally openly to yours. Without their acceptance needing to be justified to you.
The piece of the puzzle you're missing is that a child understanding what homosexuality is (for example) is equally mundane as their learning what heterosexuality is. The world is not going back to these other identities hiding themselves, so you can either accept it or spend the rest of your life uncomfortable about it. You have free will.
throwaway81523
They shouldn't call it a home speaker. A home speaker is what we used to call a radio or hi-fi system. Alexa is a home microphone.
happytoexplain
They don't - they call it a smart speaker.
HPsquared
"Smart" = Adtech.
Applies to TVs, fridges, anything really.
andix
Amazon really keeps recordings of all the things you ever said to Alexa. That's wild (I didn't know before).
Animats
And, of course, Homeland Security gets to look at all that data.
> But we have two Echo devices in our household and the data shows whether a request came from the Echo Plus in the kitchen or the original Echo on our daughter Coco’s bedside table, where it has sat since around her ninth birthday. [...] So I now know that it was Coco who wanted to know what it is to be omnisexual and what omniscient means.
Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that private information? And publishing it in a news article definitely crosses a line.