#PrivacyAlert- Amazon uses Alexa voice data to target you with ads

A report released last week contends that Amazon uses voice data from its Echo devices to serve targeted ads on its own platforms and the web. The report, produced by researchers affiliated with the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and North-eastern University, said the ways Amazon does this is inconsistent with its privacy policies.  Titled, “Your Echoes are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem,” the report concludes that Amazon and third parties (including advertising and tracking services) collect data from your interactions with Alexa through Echo smart speakers and share it with as many as 41 advertising partners. That data is then used to “infer user interests” and “serve targeted ads on platform (Echo devices) as well as off platform (web).” It also concludes that this type of data is in hot demand, leading to “30X higher ad bids from advertisers.”  

 Amazon confirmed to The Verge that it does use voice data from Alexa interactions to inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads. “Similar to what you`d experience if you made a purchase on Amazon.com or requested a song through Amazon Music, if you ask Alexa to order paper towels or to play a song on Amazon Music, the record of that purchase or song play may inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads.” Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild said in an email.  

 The company also confirmed that there are targeted ads for smart speakers. "Customers may receive interest-based ads when they use premium content that is supported by ads, such as music, radio, and news streams," Raemhild said. He said that it would be the same experience when using it. She went on to say that Amazon wouldn't share voice recordings with developers. “Developers will be provided with the information they need to meet their needs within their abilities. B. We will answer when you play a trivia quiz or the name of the song you want to play,” she said. “We will not share your personal information with third parties without your consent.” Amazon also allows Alexa users to opt out of ad targeting (see sidebar).  

 The 10 researchers behind the report, led by Umar Iqbal, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, have created an audit framework to measure online advertising data collection. Next, I created a set of personas to interact with Alexa using third-party skills. These personas had specific interests in spirituality, connected cars, smart homes, pets, fashion, dating, navigation, drinks, health and more. They also created a "vanilla" persona as a control. 

Statistical evaluation of the outcomes decided that every character become served focused advertisements someplace else at the net, main to the realization that clever speaker interactions are used for advert focused on at the net and in audio advertisements. This led the researchers to decide there has been “sturdy proof that clever-speaker interactions are used for the reason of focused on advertisements, and that this advert focused on implies huge records sharing throughout more than one parties.”  

 The file notes that most effective processed transcripts have been shared, now no longer uncooked audio, concurring with what Amazon`s Raemhild stated. Additionally, as compared to previous studies on clever TVs and VR headsets, there has been much less records pastime monitoring on clever speakers.  

 Amazon advised The Verge that it believes the studies is flawed. “Many of the conclusions on these studies are primarily based totally on faulty inferences or hypothesis through the authors, and do now no longer correctly mirror how Alexa works,” Raemhild stated. “We aren't withinside the commercial enterprise of promoting our clients` non-public statistics and we do now no longer proportion Alexa requests with marketing and marketing networks.”  

 Raemhild stated that every one third-celebration capabilities that gather non-public statistics are required to submit their privacy coverage on their talent web page and that builders may also then use those statistics according with the one's guidelines. “For example, an advert-supported tune streaming provider may also permit clients to opt-in or out of interest-primarily based totally advertisements everywhere that provider may be used,” stated Raemhild. However, the file determined that the ones guidelines have been spotty at best, with extra than 70 percentage of the capabilities it tested now no longer even bringing up Alexa or Amazon, and most effective 10 capabilities (2.2 percentage) being clean approximately records series practices of their privacy guidelines.  

 The authors finish there's a want for more transparency into clever speaker records series, sharing, and use. They observe those gadgets are currently “black-field gadgets without open interfaces that permit impartial researchers to show what records is amassed or how they may be shared and used.”