Back in April Amazon was facing a lawsuit surrounding the data that it had been collecting on children through its Alexa smart speakers without parental consent, today that Lawsuit has been won by the US government slapping Amazon with an over $30 Million Fine.
Amazon Hit With Over $30 Million Fine
The Lawsuit as reported by npr.org claims that Amazon violated privacy laws by keeping recordings of children’s conversations with the Alexa Smart Assistant as well as claims that some employees were monitoring customer’s Ring cameras without consent. The Federal Trade Commission claimed the lawsuit alleging that these practices had violated the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and that the stored recordings must be deleted as per parents’ requests which has previously been ignored.
In total, the lawsuit seeks over $30 million which is a tiny number for Amazon and it most definitely should be a lot more to really deter them from abusing these powers. Amazon has also been asked in the outcome of the Ring camera recording claims, that they must delete customer videos from before 2018 and notify customers about the FTC’s actions. As expected Amazon has denied these claims and lies through their teeth with the claim that they take customer privacy seriously. All in all, I’m not surprised this is happening and that is exactly why I will never own a Ring camera or any smart device, useless things that are just massive privacy concerns. Supposedly the money claimed by the lawsuit will be refunded to customers affected by the issues.
