Posted this yesterday with same source, same headline: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20117905
Cool.
Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
31–40 of 169 posts
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
The police department stated that she was a suspect; Amazon identified her as a thief, breaking the presumption of innocence that is a bedrock of American society. If the video is fine, the post wording still isn't.
Even if one claims the video is fine (and I'd disagree), it's still a very very very bad idea for Amazon, or any large company, to be enforcing the law and conducting mass shaming via advertising. That's practically a Black Mirror episode, and I would hope that everyone can see this, but judging from this comment thread, that's clearly not the case. Disturbing.
What's the practical difference between a TV show like "COPS" (or any of its various descendants), which features police recordings of its interactions in public with possibly-innocent suspects, and what's happening here? Is it merely the association with a commercial product?
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#33Innocent until proven guilty.*
*or until public ads by Amazon sway the jury with video editing and accusations.
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#34I smell a lawsuit coming. How can Amazon think it's ok to use people's faces in an advertisement when those people haven't been convicted of a crime? The case of Ring is particularly disturbing. When its inventor appeared on Shark Tank, he said he wanted to create a way to hear his doorbell from the garage. Since Amazon bought the company for $1B, it's pivoted to a surveillance tool that's being offered to police as…
As an attorney (this is not legal advice), I would like to know what law might be violated by publishing these videos. They're owned by the person who recorded the video; and presumably they gave Ring a license to use them for such purposes. The subject of the video, as far as I can tell, has no rights that might be recognized in law. There's no privacy right, as there's no reasonable expectation of privacy under suc…
Fortunately Amazon/Ring would get a rocket up their arse if they tried this in the UK (and presumably the rest of Europe covered by GDPR):
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#35I smell a lawsuit coming. How can Amazon think it's ok to use people's faces in an advertisement when those people haven't been convicted of a crime? The case of Ring is particularly disturbing. When its inventor appeared on Shark Tank, he said he wanted to create a way to hear his doorbell from the garage. Since Amazon bought the company for $1B, it's pivoted to a surveillance tool that's being offered to police as…
As an attorney (this is not legal advice), I would like to know what law might be violated by publishing these videos. They're owned by the person who recorded the video; and presumably they gave Ring a license to use them for such purposes. The subject of the video, as far as I can tell, has no rights that might be recognized in law. There's no privacy right, as there's no reasonable expectation of privacy under suc…
GDPR?
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> his skin tone is wrong I'm happy this is pretty close to the extent of "racism" in our society at this point. Really grasping at straws if you have to keep reminding people about the horrors of racism when it comes out as, "Some people are upset that a wrong-colored stranger showed up at their door."
That's nowhere near "the extent of 'racism' in our society at this point". You must be from a pretty affluent area if you believe racism is a non-issue. Racism is fucking disgusting, coming from a white dude. I've had to pick up tables as a server because certain (infrequent) people "don't want a nigger to touch their food". I bought my co-worker lunch that day. He felt completely destroyed by not being able to make…
> You must be from a pretty affluent area if you believe racism is a non-issue.
I'm not, and I'm also not white.
But hey, keep your eyes on the prize and focus on the actual racism out there, rather than diversion tactics like people complaining about other people complaining about strangers coming to their door.
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#37I smell a lawsuit coming. How can Amazon think it's ok to use people's faces in an advertisement when those people haven't been convicted of a crime? The case of Ring is particularly disturbing. When its inventor appeared on Shark Tank, he said he wanted to create a way to hear his doorbell from the garage. Since Amazon bought the company for $1B, it's pivoted to a surveillance tool that's being offered to police as…
As an attorney (this is not legal advice), I would like to know what law might be violated by publishing these videos. They're owned by the person who recorded the video; and presumably they gave Ring a license to use them for such purposes. The subject of the video, as far as I can tell, has no rights that might be recognized in law. There's no privacy right, as there's no reasonable expectation of privacy under suc…
Defamation seems the obvious one.
Also, in Europe being in a public place doesn't mean you automatically lose your right to privacy.
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#38I smell a lawsuit coming. How can Amazon think it's ok to use people's faces in an advertisement when those people haven't been convicted of a crime? The case of Ring is particularly disturbing. When its inventor appeared on Shark Tank, he said he wanted to create a way to hear his doorbell from the garage. Since Amazon bought the company for $1B, it's pivoted to a surveillance tool that's being offered to police as…
As an attorney (this is not legal advice), I would like to know what law might be violated by publishing these videos. They're owned by the person who recorded the video; and presumably they gave Ring a license to use them for such purposes. The subject of the video, as far as I can tell, has no rights that might be recognized in law. There's no privacy right, as there's no reasonable expectation of privacy under suc…
Former attorney here. I'd guess it would be a claim like defamation or false light. These laws aren't typically used in this way, but I could see them being applied here.
For defamation, for example, the claim would be that by including someone's face in an advertisement about home security videos, Amazon is implying that the person pictured is someone whom you would not want snooping around your house because he's a criminal. This would tend to hurt that person's reputation, which is the legal test for defamation.
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> his skin tone is wrong I'm happy this is pretty close to the extent of "racism" in our society at this point. Really grasping at straws if you have to keep reminding people about the horrors of racism when it comes out as, "Some people are upset that a wrong-colored stranger showed up at their door."
You’re an idiot. There is plenty of overt racism today, don’t post your incoherent political ramblings on HN, it’s not the place.
As I said in my other comment, maybe focus on the overt racism. I'm getting sick of seeing people nitpick at pointless garbage like perceived or circumstantial racism (something akin to 'these people must be pearl-clutching racists because they get upset that the stranger at their door is not light-skinned'). It seriously degrades actual claims of racism.
And I didn't bring race into this, the parent comment to my own did.
Re: Amazon’s Ring Is Putting Suspected Petty Thieves in Its Advertisements
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is this is an ad. Commercial speech is subject to more regulation than private speech in America. For example, California has a right of publicity law. It's my understanding that even photos taken "in public" can't necessarily be used for commercial purposes: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-right-publicity-l...
(Attorney here, but this is not legal advice.) It would be a very unusual circumstance for a person caught on camera performing a criminal act to incriminate him/herself by admitting guilt for the purpose of prevailing on a right-to-publicity action. Moreover, every case involving right to publicity/right of likeness thus far has had a "famous" person as the plaintiff, where there's a sort of "brand goodwill" in the…
> It would be a very unusual circumstance for a person caught on camera performing a criminal act
But the person wasn’t caught on camera performing a criminal act afaics. She was caught walking between two cars and pulling at a door handle, the car was locked, person continued. Is this criminal? Kids do that all the time.
It’s alleged that the person did perform a criminal act elsewhere but was not caught on camera.