ArsTechnica: Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

You might as well throw your Echo and Alexa-powered devices in the trash like you should have done years ago.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

Cory (@pluralistic) with a banger of a post:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen

And this factoid:

"Congress hasn't passed a consumer #privacy law since 1988, when the Video Privacy Protection Act banned video store clerks from disclosing which VHS cassettes you brought home."

After Amazon's news this week,
I feel the need to share this advice from my Privacy Guides article again:

Notify guests if you are
using a smart speaker

If you are using a smart speaker device in your home such as Amazon's Echo (Alexa), Apple's HomePod (Siri), Google's Nest,

Inform your guests about it when they enter your home

These devices have the capacity
to record all conversations, and there has already been instances of accidental privacy invasion reported about this

Even if you don't mind yourself,
offer your guests to UNPLUG your smart speaker while they are visiting you

https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/03/10/the-privacy-of-others/#notify-guests-if-you-are-using-a-smart-speaker

If you have an Amazon Echo, Ring, or other corpo snitchware installed in your home - you should sell it or smash it with a hammer

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

Starting on March 28, Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. In other words, everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon. @ArsTechnica reports:

https://flip.it/cGX-fa

Alexa will send all recordings to Amazon

In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everythi

https://vowe.net/2025/03/15/alexa-will-send-all-recordings-to-amazon/

Everything you say to your #Echo will be sent to #Amazon starting on March 28

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

First, #amazon stops the option that one can download the purchased #books to a computer.
Now they seem to stop the option to not send #echo voice recordings to the cloud, meaning they all always go to the cloud.
I wonder, why these two steps…
Or maybe not.

https://www.theverge.com/news/630049/amazon-echo-discontinues-do-not-send-voice-recording-setting

'My wife asked why I carry a gun around the house.

I looked at her and said "Spyware". She laughed, I laughed, Alexa laughed, I shot Alexa, it was a good time."

#Amazon #spyware #Alexa #Echo #HomeAssistant
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon’s cloud.

#amazon #echo #alexa #cloud #privacy
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

Amazon is going to be disabling the privacy feature that processes voice commands locally on Echo devices at the end of this month. Instead, all voice commands will be sent to Amazon's cloud for processing.

I have already followed my own steps to remediate this:

1. Unplug Echo Device
2. Throw Echo Device in Trash
3. Done