Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
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Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#2"Still, I was astonished to discover that Amazon built the perfect machinery to let them track any Amazon Assistant user or all of them: what they view and for how long, what they search on the web, what accounts they are logged into and more.
Amazon could also mess with the web experience at will and for example hijack competitors’ web shops. Amazon Assistant log with a borg eye Image credits: Amazon, nicubunu, OpenClipart
Mind you, I’m not saying that Amazon is currently doing any of this."
This goes for any browser extension you install if you don't limit which websites it's allowed to read data from.
In both the title and beginning paragraph, the author essentially describes the privacy risks that would apply to any browser extension, but words it in a way that implies Amazon is actively abusing those privacy holes, before finding any evidence for it.
I really wish people would stop giving views to blatantly manipulative and slimy clickbait like this.
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#3"Still, I was astonished to discover that Amazon built the perfect machinery to let them track any Amazon Assistant user or all of them: what they view and for how long, what they search on the web, what accounts they are logged into and more. Amazon could also mess with the web experience at will and for example hijack competitors’ web shops. Amazon Assistant log with a borg eye Image credits: Amazon, nicubunu, Open…
You could also read the article before commenting. It’s one thing when an extension could do something but its code can be inspected to verify that it doesn’t. It’s an entirely different thing if it delegates its privileges to a web service that could do anything and that nobody can inspect.
Note: I’m the author of this article.
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#4The assistant should play the tune of "Every Breath You Take" by The Police when its doing this.
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#5Seems to me that browser extensions need better access control. Why isn't it possible to restrict it to just amazon.com itself, for example?
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#6"Still, I was astonished to discover that Amazon built the perfect machinery to let them track any Amazon Assistant user or all of them: what they view and for how long, what they search on the web, what accounts they are logged into and more. Amazon could also mess with the web experience at will and for example hijack competitors’ web shops. Amazon Assistant log with a borg eye Image credits: Amazon, nicubunu, Open…
> before finding any evidence for it
Did you see the screenshot with the Amazon ad popup obscuring Google ads?
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#7"Still, I was astonished to discover that Amazon built the perfect machinery to let them track any Amazon Assistant user or all of them: what they view and for how long, what they search on the web, what accounts they are logged into and more. Amazon could also mess with the web experience at will and for example hijack competitors’ web shops. Amazon Assistant log with a borg eye Image credits: Amazon, nicubunu, Open…
This is a greater issue with the extension/app ecosystem.
This morning I wanted to find a android app which would help me time exercises, specifically planking.
It should be simple, set up countdown times for front and each side with 5 second breaks in between, playing a tone to let me know when I can move on or I am done with the exercise.
I looked through at least the top 20 apps on the play store and all of them require at least full network access and to run at startup. Many were so invasive as to request location and to be able to record audio and take pictures.
Being able to monetize these apps is an important thing for developers but it is becoming a real problem I do not see getting any better soon.
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#8Seems to me that browser extensions need better access control. Why isn't it possible to restrict it to just amazon.com itself, for example?
I’m not familiar with Chrome/Firefox extensions, but for Safari Web Extensions you can indeed restrict extensions. [0]
Edit: Looks like this feature is present in Chrome/Firefox extensions as well but for all these platforms (Safari included I think), this needs to be implemented in the code itself[1]
[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf...
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10504239/limit-chrome-ex...
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#9"Still, I was astonished to discover that Amazon built the perfect machinery to let them track any Amazon Assistant user or all of them: what they view and for how long, what they search on the web, what accounts they are logged into and more. Amazon could also mess with the web experience at will and for example hijack competitors’ web shops. Amazon Assistant log with a borg eye Image credits: Amazon, nicubunu, Open…
This is a greater issue with the extension/app ecosystem. This morning I wanted to find a android app which would help me time exercises, specifically planking. It should be simple, set up countdown times for front and each side with 5 second breaks in between, playing a tone to let me know when I can move on or I am done with the exercise. I looked through at least the top 20 apps on the play store and all of them r…
Stronglifts has a nice app that I don’t remember being overly intrusive. I just wish it were easier to use for other lifting programs.
Re: Amazon Assistant lets Amazon track your every move on the web
#10This is clickbait. The authors argument is that the extension has enough privileges to track you, not that it actually does.
For example, uBlock Origin has similar privileges but I doubt the author would bat an eye.
EDIT: I take back my comment :)