FTC Cracks Down on Amazon For Abusing Consumers’ Most Sensitive Data
Washington, D.C. — In response to news that Amazon has agreed to pay $25 million to settle two separate claims by the FTC related to its lax Ring Camera data security practices and its violation of COPPA rules governing the collection and use of minors’ personal information, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.
“It’s great to see the FTC hold Amazon accountable for its wanton disregard for the privacy and safety of its customers and their children,” said Krista Brown, Senior Policy Analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Amazon deceptively — and illegally — used its Alexa-enabled devices to collect children’s data and record their voices, putting their safety at risk. Amazon also failed to provide basic security for its Ring smart-home systems, allowing third-parties to view and distribute recordings of some of the most intimate parts of their customers’ lives. Every company has an obligation to make sure its products and software protect the privacy of its customers, especially when it concerns children and home surveillance data. That applies even more so to conglomerates like Amazon that hold historically unprecedented volumes of information about our lives in their data servers.”
Ring, formerly an independent technology start-up, was acquired by Amazon in 2018 and has become a major part of Amazon’s drive into data collection. Ring doorbells are part of a gateway to the “smart home,” a set of digital services that include Alexa-enabled devices and offer more granular consumer control over the home environment, while enabling intrusive home surveillance. Alexa is the most popular voice computing platform, embedded in tens of millions of Amazon Echo and Fire devices and integrated into thousands of third party products. Its voice recognition technology is controversial for its invasive position and Amazon’s alleged practice of recording and storing longer snippets of audio than users are led to believe and that human analysts transcribe. These settlements are an important step in protecting consumers from unwanted intrusions into their home by Amazon, other Big Tech companies, and the third parties they partner with.
To learn more, read “Understanding Amazon: Making the 21st-Century Gatekeeper Safe for Democracy” here.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.