Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#51

Post by hulitu »

Brendinooo wrote: post #13

A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. I invested in Mycroft to try and kickstart a privacy-focused alternative; the hardware isn't there yet but they've made good strides on the software side. You can invest too! https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai Make the world we want to live in.

> A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff.

A reminder that even in EU Alexa seems to be ok ( from State POV) even if it violates GDPR.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#52

Post by putlake »

VRay wrote: post #41
putlake wrote: post #9

The cartoon playing out in the media once again reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia because I used to work at Alexa. The lengths that they go to for preserving consumer privacy actually seemed absurd to me. Alexa engineers and applied scientists' lives would have been much easier if they didn't take customer privacy -- and their right to request and delete their data -- so seriously. Yes, they are lobbying against regula…

And yet you're collecting insane amounts of data with little or no way to opt out of it, and storing that data in a country where the secret police can rifle through it any time with effectively no oversight.

You can ask to see the data Amazon has on you, and for it to be deleted. If you ask for it to be deleted, they will delete it all. And you can keep asking every month if you like. Not to mention no one is forcing you to use Alexa in the first place.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#53

Post by dantheman »

ssklash wrote: post #28
loteck wrote: post #8

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs ac…

Wyden is the single best tech-related legislator in Congress, in my opinion. A great all around senator as well.

He says the right things sometimes but is often ineffective - why didn't he call out Clapper when he was lying to him in congress? It is up to the legislature to control the government.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#54

Post by gopher_space »

r00fus wrote: post #36
Brendinooo wrote: post #13

A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. I invested in Mycroft to try and kickstart a privacy-focused alternative; the hardware isn't there yet but they've made good strides on the software side. You can invest too! https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai Make the world we want to live in.

> A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. What happens when you kid's friends use and they visit? What happens when everything is "Alexa enabled" and comes on by default? Voting with your wallet doesn't work against sufficiently large vendor who's willing to lose money to achieve their goals.

Voting with your wallet isn't a situation where you're concerned about the results. The point isn't so much to change bad behavior as it is to disassociate yourself from it.

If enough people become aware of the option and follow suit, change might occur that you'd like. That isn't what motivates you.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#55

Post by boomboomsubban »

rileyphone wrote: post #47
ssklash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyden is the single best tech-related legislator in Congress, in my opinion. A great all around senator as well.

> In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[55] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do bus…

While I am not in favor of the bill, his description of it is far different from the one presumably on his Wikipedia page.

He said it adds to an existing law, one that has never sent a person to prison, that forbids people from following a boycott organized by a foreign state. You'd be free to form your own boycott.

Again, not something I support. But on the "bullshit Representatives support" scale, not a huge deal

https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/368374-250754-wyden-defen...

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#56

Post by notreallyserio »

loteck wrote: post #8

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs ac…

Fully half of Congress these last few decades has been violently opposed to basic privacy rights (with some of their supporters literally violent). I'm not sure we can expect any progress on this front until we see the congressional makeup shift substantially.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#57

Post by r00fus »

gopher_space wrote: post #54
r00fus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. What happens when you kid's friends use and they visit? What happens when everything is "Alexa enabled" and comes on by default? Voting with your wallet doesn't work against sufficiently large vendor who's willing to lose money to achieve their goals.

Voting with your wallet isn't a situation where you're concerned about the results. The point isn't so much to change bad behavior as it is to disassociate yourself from it. If enough people become aware of the option and follow suit, change might occur that you'd like. That isn't what motivates you.

> Voting with your wallet isn't a situation where you're concerned about the results.

Unclear what you are trying to say but honestly it's a pain I have to do this everywhere. That's why we have regulation & legislation: so corporations don't have to get "market signals" they're free to ignore, vs laws they must actually follow or get fined/held liable.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#58

Post by mschuster91 »

rileyphone wrote: post #47
ssklash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wyden is the single best tech-related legislator in Congress, in my opinion. A great all around senator as well.

> In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[55] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do bus…

> The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.

I fail to see the problem in the government not indirectly funding entities supporting agitation against a close military and political ally of the US.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#59

Post by putlake »

jjulius wrote: post #16
putlake wrote: post #9

The cartoon playing out in the media once again reminds me of Gell-Mann Amnesia because I used to work at Alexa. The lengths that they go to for preserving consumer privacy actually seemed absurd to me. Alexa engineers and applied scientists' lives would have been much easier if they didn't take customer privacy -- and their right to request and delete their data -- so seriously. Yes, they are lobbying against regula…

The original Reuters article[0] about Amazon's lobbying efforts addresses that point. It says: > Amazon said it wants one national privacy law rather than a “patchwork” of state regulations. Asked for details of any federal privacy legislation it has supported, Amazon did not name a specific bill. The company did provide three examples of what it described as statements of public support by its executives for federal…

Thank you for sharing the original Reuters article. In that article it says Amazon helped draft Virginia's privacy bill. So I guess they are making exactly the effort you talked about? But of course Reuters is calling them out on it:

"In Virginia, the company boosted political donations tenfold over four years before persuading lawmakers this year to pass an industry-friendly privacy bill that Amazon itself drafted."

After a lot of insinuations and handwaving about lobbying, the article has this short paragraph about what's actually in the law: "The Virginia law allows technology companies to track consumer searches on their platforms to create marketing profiles. It gave tech companies exemptions to collect and analyze smart-speaker recordings without customer consent. And it prevented consumers from suing companies over privacy violations."

Seems totally reasonable to me. Amazon already lets you get a copy of your data and you can request for it to be deleted. And from having worked there (note: I no longer work there and don't have a dog in this fight), I know how the org ties its own hands and makes things difficult for itself, just to protect customer data and their right for that data to be deleted forever.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#60

Post by nitrogen »

emptycan wrote: post #42
LogonType10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon delivery vans scan nearby WiFi networks for SSIDs and tag that with geolocation. Amazon knows all about your home network .

That's quite a leap from "scan SSID" to knowing "all about your home network" and sounds like hyperbole. What can I gather from just passively scanning SSID and possibly putting out some probes on a properly configured WiFi network? I imagine some things like number of hosts, MAC addresses, traffic stats - which is not ideal, but hardly what I would call knowing "all about it". I'm quite the privacy nut, but I always…

broadcast over the airwaves

Intent matters a great deal. Very few people intend for their wifi to reach their neighbors or the street. There is already an expectation of privacy for visible and IR wavelengths of the EM spectrum.

Post reply on HN