Ambient Listening....

This is a post similar to an earlier post about search engines. A buddy of mine bought me an Alexa a few months ago for a birthday present. After a few weeks, I realized that after having normal conversations (not saying "Alexa, please..."), I was getting ads on my web browser related to what we'd talked about. We unplugged Alexa and now it sits on the shelf with the blue light dark.

So all of these devices that respond to voice commands - Amazon, Google, now Facebook... are actually listening all the time and selling the "data" to advertisers. And evidently it's discoverable evidence in a legal proceeding. There's just no way I'm ever using a device like this. Thanks but I can turn my lights on by getting up and hitting the switch. On one hand, I really don't have anything to hide but who knows what can be constructed by taking snippets of speech, taking them out of context...nothing good can come of that.

I also worry about my iPhone's Siri... Maybe it wasn't so bad having the old Motorola Flip-phone... Younger people - especially those who've had an iPhone since they were five years old - have no clue about the risks here. Until they do...