this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

everything you say to your echo/alexa has always been sent to amazon.

theres literally been leaks proving it.

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[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 83 points 2 days ago (3 children)

If you were using one, you were already okay with this.

[–] Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah. Hell, chances are they were already

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[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If Corporations were people, they'd be disappeared in the night for stuff like this.

Which is why they're not people.

Why anyone would want some Tech company spybot sifting through their private experiences is beyond me, but that's definitely what they are doing.

[–] JayleneSlide@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Which is why they're not people.

But the C-suite and board are almost like humans. And that's even better for... things.

[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 33 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There's no way they weren't doing this already.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I mean if they were doing this already there would be no point in sending this email out. They would have just happily continued letting people think it wasn’t happening while doing it anyway, while not having to deal with the backlash this will generate.

[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

My suspicion is they probably need to announce it now for some legal reason but there's no Amazon device with the power to do this locally so it's definitely always been sent to them.

Now would they delete that right away or analyse it first, I kinda think they would have always done the latter.

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

I mean there’s no legal reason that would exist now that didn’t before.

My guess is that they did honor the setting, but that was because the amount of people that used it was so low vs the total number of people that used the devices. Now with smart speaker adoption rates declining, and their desire to train AI, they have to dip into the pool of people that opted not to share.

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[–] DaChrissy@reddthat.com 89 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Amazon really got people to pay to be spied on. Wild world we live in bois

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 210 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Publicly, that is. They have no doubt been doing it in secret since they launched it.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 105 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Off-device processing has been the default from day one. The only thing changing is the removal for local processing on certain devices, likely because the new backing AI model will no longer be able to run on that hardware.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 53 points 2 days ago (1 children)

With on-device processing, they don’t need to send audio. They can just send the text, which is infinitely smaller and easier to encrypt as “telemetry”. They’ve probably got logs of conversations in every Alexa household.

[–] b1t@lemm.ee 48 points 2 days ago (23 children)

This has always blown my mind. Watching people willingly allow Big Brother-esque devices into their home for very, very minor conveniences like turning on some gimmicky multi-colored light bulbs. Now they're literally using home "security" cameras that store everything on some random cloud server. I'll truly never understand.

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[–] PeterisBacon@lemm.ee 100 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I have always told people to avoid Amazon.

They have doorbells to watch who comes to your house and when.

Indoor and outdoor security cameras to monitor when you go outside, for how long, and why.

They acquired roomba, which not only maps out your house, but they have little cameras in them as well, another angle to monitor you through your house in more personal areas that indoor cameras might not see.

They have the Alexa products meant to record you at all times for their own use and intent.

Why do you think along with Amazon Prime subscriptions you get free cloud storage, free video streaming, free music? They are categorizing you in the most efficient and accurate way possible.

Boycott anything Amazon touches

[–] swampdownloader@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I agree with your sentiment and despise Amazon but they do not own roomba the deal fell through.

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[–] faberyayo@lemm.ee 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, just avoid the oligarchy tech

[–] PeteZa@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I agree. Although it’s nearly impossible at this point. Especially with Amazon running a significant portion of the internet with AWS. Each one of us most likely touches an Amazon server multiple times a day, even if we don’t have any Amazon subscriptions.

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago

That doesn't matter. You only need to worry about boycotting things within your control, like Amazon shopping and their consumer products. AWS is profitable, but so is Amazon.com.

Buying something at a different store is always a dub even if that store is using AWS on the backend.

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[–] Sovereign@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

This is horrible. Has this not already been happening tho??

[–] Ronno@feddit.nl 51 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Want to setup a more privacy friendly solution?

Have a look at Home Assistant! It’s a great open source smart home platform that recently released a local (so not processing requests in the cloud) voice assistant. It’s pretty neat!

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[–] 52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org 81 points 2 days ago (5 children)

People are saying don't get an echo but this is the tip of an iceberg. My coworkers' cell phones are eavesdropping. My neighbors doorbells record every time I leave the house. Almost every new vehicle mines us for data. We can avoid some of the problem but we cannot avoid it all. We need a bigger, more aggressive solution if we are going to have a solution at all.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

How about regulation? Let's start with saying data about me belongs to me, not to whoever collected the data, as is currently the case

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[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If you do not want to set your voice recordings setting to 'Don't save recordings,' please follow these steps before March 28th:

Am I the only one curious to know what these steps are? The image cuts off the rest of the email.

[–] pogmommy@lemmy.ml 44 points 2 days ago
  1. Unplug your amazon echo devices
  1. Hit it with a hammer
  1. Send it to an electronics recycler
[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

If anyone else is wondering, I’ve not found a verbatim quote of the steps but I did see an article that mentioned the consequences. It seems like you will be able to turn this off but it will disable Voice ID:

anyone with their Echo device set to “Don’t save recordings” will see their already-purchased devices’ Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings.

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[–] richardisaguy@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (5 children)

How the fuck does anyone even buy one of these

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You can get them on Amazon.

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[–] AynRandLibertarian@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (13 children)

The same people who buy mobile phones; despite those being bugs/spy-devices.

[–] slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

True, but a mobile phone is basically a world brain, calculator, camera, flashlight, you can watch movies on it in hi def, hate it all you want, it's one of the most versatile tools on the planet. An echo dot, it just spy garbage and nothing else

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 37 points 2 days ago

They literally could just leave the feature on the device, but then you can't force your users to send you all their data, voices, thoughts and first borns

Fuck Amazon, fuck Bezos

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

For anyone with existing Home Assistant setup, the Home Assistant Voice Preview is pretty good alternative, when it comes to voice control of HA. The setup is very easy. If you want conversational functionality, you could even hook it up to an LLM, cloud or local. It can also be used for media playback and it's got an aux out port.

I used to use Google Home Mini for voice control of Home Assistant. The Voice Preview replaced that rather nicely.

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[–] Jocker@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago

Great, they made it public.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago
[–] muh_shroom@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I can’t believe people are still voluntarily wire tapping themselves in 2025

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[–] kaerypheur@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

🔴 I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.

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[–] DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Today: "...they will be deleted after Alexa processes your requests."

Some point in the not-so-distant future: "We are reaching out to let you know that your voice recordings will no longer be deleted. As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities, we have decided to no longer support this feature."

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[–] blackberry@midwest.social 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

be aware, everything you say around amazon, apple, alphabet, meta, and any other corporate trash products are being sold, trained on, and sent to your local alphabet agency. it's been this way for a while, but this is a nice reminder to know when to speak and when to listen

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[–] tabular@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Who the hell is the manufacture to decide if a remote feature no longer functions? (I'm guessing people don't rent these devices from Amazon - it's your property).

I don't need your concent, it's in your best interests - Amazon

[–] MintyFresh@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Easy fix: don't buy this garbage to begin with. It's terrible for the environment, terrible for your privacy, of dubious value to begin with.

If every man is an onion, one of my deeper layers is crumudgeon. So take that into account when I say fuck all portable speakers. I'm so tired of hearing everyone's shitty noise. Just fucking everywhere. It takes one person feeling entitled to blast the shittiest music available to ruin everyone in a 500yd radius's day. If this is you, I hope you stub your toe on every coffee table, hit your head on every door jam, miss every bus.

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[–] Billybob22@feddit.uk 15 points 2 days ago

Just sold my 3 devices and shut down Amazon account. It's very liberating and I don't miss it one bit. Have Home Assistant and a couple of really good 2nd hand Sonos speakers.

[–] adhdplantdev@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Duh. This why no one should have this tech as the arbiters can never be trusted with public saftey/good.

[–] jcs@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

If anyone remembers the Mycroft Mark II Voice Assistant Kickstarter and was disappointed when development challenges and patent trolls caused the company's untimely demise, know that hope is not lost for a FOSS/OSHW voice assistant insulated from Big Tech..

FAQ: OVOS, Neon, and the Future of the Mycroft Voice Assistant

Disclaimer: I do not represent any of these organizations in any way; I just believe in their mission and wish them all the success in getting there by spreading the word.

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