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The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

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Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#211

Post by robertlagrant »

disattention wrote: post #202
TZubiri wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chill man. Just send back the product and ask for a refund.

This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. It's ok for people to feel things, and it's ok for people to want laws addressing anti-consumer behavior.

> This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference.

None of these comments are fixing issues or trying to make a difference. Sending the product back is a really good idea, especially if this change in terms means you can get a refund even if you've had it a long time.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#212

Post by DFHippie »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #118
DevX101 wrote: post #3

Now would be a good time to have a functional FTC commissioner. Doing a bait and switch like on a product that was sold with a set of features should be illegal. If I buy a car and the sales guy stops by my house the next day to take back the wheels, it would rightfully be seen as ridiculous.

IANAL but I thought bait and switch is illegal? It definitely is in the EU. Is it not in the US?

[flagged]

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#213

Post by IsTom »

eadmund wrote: post #194
tanepiper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughs in European Consumer Protection How's that "break regulation to innovate" working out for US?

Well, the per-capita GDP of the poorest U.S. state — Mississippi — is greater than that of the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Poland and many others, and within 10% of Finland, Germany, Belgium and Austria. 34 of the 47 European states have lower per-capita GDPs than Mississippi. The median per-capita U.S. state GDP is $78,649; the median per-capita European state GDP is $28,713. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.or…

> Poland

I don't know much about others, but perhaps you should be comparing ratio of GDP in the last 20 years, not absolute values. With Poland coming very poor out of communism and all.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#214

Post by chillingeffect »

eadmund wrote: post #194
tanepiper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughs in European Consumer Protection How's that "break regulation to innovate" working out for US?

Well, the per-capita GDP of the poorest U.S. state — Mississippi — is greater than that of the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Poland and many others, and within 10% of Finland, Germany, Belgium and Austria. 34 of the 47 European states have lower per-capita GDPs than Mississippi. The median per-capita U.S. state GDP is $78,649; the median per-capita European state GDP is $28,713. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.or…

Mississippi is the chronic showcase of american wealth inequality.

Mississippi has the lowest life expectancy in the U.S. (about 73 years), significantly lower than the national average (77).

Mississippi has the lowest median household income in the U.S. (about $52,000 in 2022), compared to a U.S. median of around $75,000.

Mississippi has high rates of obesity, diabetes, and preventable diseases, partly due to poor healthcare access.

France and Italy have top-tier universal healthcare, while the UK's NHS, despite challenges, still provides free-at-point-of-use care.

In Mississippi, many rely on Medicaid or have limited healthcare options.

Mississippi’s school system ranks among the worst in the U.S. European countries have stronger public education systems and more government support for higher education.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#216

Post by _heimdall »

whiplash451 wrote: post #189
everdrive wrote: post #186

People don't really care about privacy, it's as simple as that. Yes, they worry about privacy, and complain about violations of privacy. But if they cared, they never would have purchased this product in the first place. There are bits of technology which violate privacy, but are extremely difficult to fully avoid: Social Media, (I know a lot of HN isn't on it, but how about most of your family and friends?) smart ph…

This kind of apathic statement is not very useful. By your logic, we should not care about climate change either. "People don't care about privacy" doesn't mean that regulators and the tech community should not lead a charge.

People should care about climate change, that's different from whether people do care about it.

More importantly though, those that do care should do as much as they're willing to do to help avoid making it worse.

For some that means choosing to only buy products made with natural materials, growing/raising their own food, drinking rain water, etc. For others that means not using plastic straws.

There's no perfect answer and no one really knows what will happen in the future or how to best change it. Regulators fall into this camp too, they don't know the future and they can't accurately predict precisely what must be don't. Expecting this of them is a fools errand and demanding everyone do what they say is oppressive at best.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#218

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

_heimdall wrote: post #206
DevX101 wrote: post #3

Now would be a good time to have a functional FTC commissioner. Doing a bait and switch like on a product that was sold with a set of features should be illegal. If I buy a car and the sales guy stops by my house the next day to take back the wheels, it would rightfully be seen as ridiculous.

The car is no longer usable without the wheels, I believe the argument for Alexa would be that the core functionality is still usable without the privacy setting. I don't see why we would need the FTC to fix this. If someone bought Alexa from Amazon and honestly expected it to be privacy focused, they just made a mistake and can learn from it. Problems don't always have to be solved by running to the biggest authorit…

"Do not send voice recordings" back to Amazon HQ =/= "privacy focused." It's arguably a necessary feature for minimal privacy in one's home, and I expect that a lot of people bought those devices with that in mind.

If the FTC doesn't fix this kind of spontaneous downgrade, I'm not sure what they're for at all.

If somebody falls for a criminal's fraud, I suppose "they just made a mistake and can learn from it"? No need for anybody else, or any authority, to do anything?

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#219

Post by Telemakhos »

dwayne_dibley wrote: post #123
phito wrote: post #103

I will never understand why anyone would ever want to use voice assistants (other than for accessibility reasons). It is so gimmicky and awkward to use. Android Auto does not even understand the word "no".

This reads more like, 'they're not very good' rather than 'people don't want them'. They could be hugely useful, and even in their current capacity I find are very much so. I find it maddening that my google home, hasn't got a single bit better in the 8 years since it's release, and it's now missing some of my favourite features it had at launch. The whole market has been stagnate ever since they convinced me to put…

> ever since they convinced me to put a microphone in my house, it's almost as if that was their end game

It was. You’re one of the few in the thread to realize that, while others are frothing at the mouth over Democrats vs Republicans or EU vs US. The Echo and like devices were never about you but about putting surveillance gear in your house and getting you to pay for it. At least on old rotary phones the cradle switch or plungers physically broke the circuit that powered the microphones. The modern cell phone and home assistant and security cameras smart televisions and smart vehicles are surveilling you at all times.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#220

Post by lynx97 »

TheDong wrote: post #195
tanepiper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughs in European Consumer Protection How's that "break regulation to innovate" working out for US?

America will continue to cripple EU consumer protection too. The EU ruled that the app store has to allow side-loading in the EU, but y'all still won't get a good browser because both Chrome and Mozilla have said making a side-loadable browser for iOS is only worth it if it can target the American market too, and the side-loading is region-locked. So sure, y'all can side-load apps in the EU now, but you still can't i…

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