Alexa, what are you doing with kids' data?

https://commercialfreechildhood.org/blog/alexa-what-are-you-doing-kids-data

by joeyespo • 7 years ago

103 67 7 years ago

The time for regulating data collection for minors at a Federal level is now[1]. I went to purchase an Amazon Echo a couple of days ago, and was surprised to see the children's version on sale for less than the current Echo Dot. It's currently listed as unavailable[2], perhaps because of the findings explored in this article.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to liquidate.

I think it was $39.95 for the children's version and $49.95 for the regular version.

There were a few pieces of dark UX/UI that hid a couple of very important differentiations that made me nope out.

1. The service automagically came with something called Amazon FreeTime[3]. It's advertised as free everything for your child; books, tv, music, etc. in exchange, of course it would kindly listen and "learn" to offer better things. Nope.

2. The device was last generation's hardware with a nice cover. It wasn't even technologically up to snuff with the current Echo Dot.

Basically I wrote it off as a kid's tracking and advertising device and purchased a regular new one.

Glad my Spidey senses were tingling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_to_children#Histor...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Kids-smart-speaker-Alexa/dp/B077...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-FreeTime-Unlimited-Monthly-Sub...

austincheney• 7 years ago

Just minors?

randomdrake4• 7 years ago

Especially minors.

pietroglyph• 7 years ago

The time for regulating data collection for minors at a Federal level is now

Are you aware of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)? It was passed in 1998, and this article specifically says that they believe Amazon is in violation of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Prot...

randomdrake4• 7 years ago

I am.

I guess it wasn't clear that I was also implying there may be something wrong when one of the largest companies in the world can sell ?? number of devices aimed specifically at children, without this regulation being enforced/checked for ?? amount of time.

Either enforcement, or regulation failed. I think we've got a lot of mechanisms for enforcement, as this article is bringing light to the necessity of.

So, perhaps the aforementioned "regulation" is not enough, and properly written regulation that can be enforced with some regularity and haste is required considering this is for children.

kbenson2• 7 years ago

Basically I wrote it off as a kid's tracking and advertising device and purchased a regular new one. Glad my Spidey senses were tingling.

Do you actually believe the regular one will be much better with respect to tracking and advertising? I have no such confidence. I think they'll just categorize the use and still associate everything they do with children.

randomdrake4• 7 years ago

I mentioned the second point because it appeared, to me anyway, that this was a separate service aimed specifically at the children's device; separate from my already assessed knowledge of Amazon, AWS, Prime, and their other affiliated (and paid) offerings.

battletested• 7 years ago

Alexa, what are you doing with kids' data?

Uhhh, collecting, storing and trying to make profit with it at some point in time? I still wonder why people don't realise this when they buy such system, it's so obvious.

ronsor• 7 years ago

While it's easy to believe free services like Google are siphoning your data, it's harder to connect that a device you pay for is collecting and selling your data.

kbenson2• 7 years ago

It shouldn't be. At this point you need a really good reason to assume a company isn't storing any information it can collect, whether they are monetizing it now or not.

It's been proven the information has value. Unless there's some regulation or contract preventing them from doing so, they're going to collect it in the vast majority of cases. Whether they already made money on a service getting the information is irrelevant.

obenn• 7 years ago

I find the best way to convey to people the reason why these smart speakers and devices are so cheap, and seem to be on sale almost perpetually.

A growing number of smart devices are being sold at below-cost, using a combination of data harvesting, ads and a proprietary app/skills store to make a profit for the maker after the sale.

_verandaguy• 7 years ago

It's necessary to educate people that while they're purchasing* the hardware, they're receiving the service "for free" (AKA, supported by ads in some way, shape, or form) via the hardware.

*purchasing may not even be fully accurate here since loads of companies are starting to treat it like a pay-once licensing fee allowing you to use hardware that they own in perpetuity or until that hardware is no longer supported by the manufacturer.

throwayEngineer• 7 years ago

Kind of confuses me when people say Apple isn't collecting your data.

Are these people unaware or fanboys?

arkades2• 7 years ago

That’s true. I’m still having trouble internalizing that my multi-hundred-dollar Bose headphones are spying on me. I’ve yet to delete the app, though I should.

duxup• 7 years ago

"I bugged my own house, and now my house is bugged!"

donretag• 7 years ago

Exactly. Don't want it? Then don't buy it. It's really that simple.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

It's really that simple.

No, it isn’t. If people buy these products knowing the terms of the trade, that’s one thing. But a lot of people don’t. This is why we have disclosure regulations.

deogeo2• 7 years ago

Until the alternatives disappear.

rchaud2• 7 years ago

You know how FB can create shadow profiles of people that have never had an FB account but were tagged on photos or comments? Same principle applies.

You may not buy an Alexa speaker, but if you're in the room having a conversation with someone who does, your name and personal information could leak as well. Same goes if the conversation was on a phone loudspeaker.

The voice data would have limited usability in its present state, but as Alexa's network effects improve, the signal to noise ratio will only get better.

OrgNet2• 7 years ago

and kids just enter fake ages so they get treated like adults anyways (complete privacy breach)

mixmastamyk4• 7 years ago

I was old enough but always entered 1900-01-01 or the earliest year allowed, now more likely to be 1920.

TeMPOraL3• 7 years ago

Kids have entered fake ages since the dawn of the Internet, because a lot of content that's interesting to teenagers - violence, nudity, drugs, offensive language - has law-mandated age restrictions.

OrgNet2• 7 years ago

Does it make it more legal for those companies to spy on those kids?

ve553• 7 years ago

Is there a good reason to put minors in a separate group here, aside from legal aspects or that it just 'feels' like a worse offense to the casual reader?

I ask because a lot of common arguments in this area don't seem to apply here that well. I'm not sure adults and adolescents on average have that much better of an understanding of how technology like this works in general (in terms of what is tracked and what your rights to that data are) - so mentioning that the kid didn't consent doesn't seem to change much, because adults using this technology don't understand what is being done behind the scenes either.

Angostura• 7 years ago

Adults are presumed to able to give informed consent, given a clear explanation of how that data will be used.

Barrin92• 7 years ago

If adults don't understand the technology and kids don't consent, isn't that exactly a scenario where we should at least protect the children, given that its widely accepted in most countries that children can't actually enter commercial relationships on their own?

ve553• 7 years ago

While protecting the kids would be nice, it results in a large inconsistency to apply it here, given the level of control we allow parents to have over their kids in many areas. For example, parents have near-complete jurisdiction over the diet of their children and can therefore cause significant health issues at their own discretion (or just due to lack of nutritional knowledge). This is (at least at the current moment) a significantly larger issue for kids than if Amazon has personal data on them or not. Accordingly, it seems strange for us to want the government to intervene with respect to data on children, but not with respect to a child's diet.

windexh8er2• 7 years ago

If adults don't understand the technology and kids don't consent, isn't that exactly a scenario where we should at least protect the children, given that its widely accepted in most countries that children can't actually enter commercial relationships on their own?

Or more accurately kids can't consent. This is the argument I've used for my kids against family members who had a hard time understanding not plastering them on social media. Basically we told everyone in the family that our kids images, names, DoB, whereabouts and anything else about them should not be posted in any form or fashion. I'd then go on to position it from my kids point of view: what if they don't consent later in life and those posts somehow impact them negatively at that time? Do you [family member] want to take on that you were the only one to choose for them? I am their custodian and doing my due diligence to keep their digital footprint to a minimum until they have the capacity to make those choices on their own behalf. I feel like there are lawsuits all around this that will be cropping up in the next decade which may shy people away from the unfiltered social media perspective many run with today.

marcosdumay• 7 years ago

Id adults don't understand the tech, they can't consent either. It's a scenario where we should be protecting everybody.

Pushing for children protection first would not be wrong, but would be counter productive.

emptybits• 7 years ago

Yes. But also: Parents, why are you letting your kids play with hardware long known to upload and preserve this data?

TeMPOraL3• 7 years ago

Because parents don't understand any of that. And it's not by accident - Google, Amazon, et al. do their best for people to not understand that.

ericd• 7 years ago

Maybe it’s time for some viral explainer videos on Facebook.

steve-benjamins• 7 years ago

They also made this video which is helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlraB-zflv8

The video shows that data wasn't deleted on the Echo Dot even after a parent tried to delete it. Which is bad. (Though there's a bigger point they are making— that parents should be able to control privacy for their children, not Amazon.)

scarejunba7• 7 years ago

The "think of the children" nonsense was so annoying as a child. Paternalistic bullshit that tried to stop me from using the Internet meaningfully. Fortunately, everyone decided to comply with pointless age gates and, as a child, I had a full and complete experience.

I'm a well-balanced individual now and I always wondered how people who were once kids and had loads of fun would lock down shit to other kids when they grew older.

Now I see this shit live. We used to think it was the previous generation that mollycoddled kids and instead we now have the perpetual hovermom because people are flipping out over this "think of the children" crap.

Imagine if I had had to have had an ID mailed in to register on sites just to discuss sci-fi just because someone might mention sex there. Wow, not living in America, I might never have even been able to discuss anything.

mixmastamyk4• 7 years ago

Children are under our protection, and don't yet have full rights. It's annoying to tweens, but not a bad thing.

Personally due to age I didn't get on the internet until age ~25 or so. And what I saw there I'll never "unsee" if you catch my drift. Would I choose expose that to my ten year old self now? Definitely not. It's just not necessary.

We may have survived intact, but the better question is, was it beneficial to you? I can't say that seeing those things at ten would have improved my life in any meaningful way. Didn't even mention the predator angle, while overblown, is a thing. Data harvesting FTW.

Less is more.

scarejunba7• 7 years ago

Of course "less is more" for everyone else. That's been the mantra of every group of people restricting rights to individuals. "Don't play video games. It'll make you violent" ; "You can't watch that movie. It'll make you a rapist" ; "Don't read that book. It'll turn you into a traitor"

No, thanks. I had the Internet from the time I was 10. It made me the capable person I am, gave me the incredible career I have today, and showed me all the things I could become. Horizons were crossed that I never dreamed possible. Many of the people I knew never saw these things and they would kill to have my life. I am absolutely committed to a free and open Internet.

Of course, the puritans are against this. The puritans are establishmentarians and authoritarians. You can never do anything because they're protecting you. Oh so very precious, the protection. No, enough with the shackles. The next generation has a right to grow without you cutting their legs out from under them.

blurbleblurble2• 7 years ago

My poor mother bought all of her adult children smart speakers for Christmas. None of us accepted them. People just don't realize what's going on behind the scenes.

52-6F-62• 7 years ago

Heh. My mom did the same thing a couple of years ago—the Google Home Mini.

We played some trivia for a while but it sits there unplugged until we want to use it... which is rarely. The last time has to have been over a year ago...

eitland• 7 years ago

My Google Home Mini (that I got for Christmas) sits unplugged but it is a very good speaker even if I turn off the mic.

If I can just get myself to accept that the mic is off when I have turned it off I might actually start using it more.

BTW: Has anyone verified this?

nydel2• 7 years ago

Alexa, what are you doing with kids' data?

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