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KoKo

(84,711 posts)
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 10:16 AM Jun 2014

"Amazon's New Phone is Not Your Friend" -- Its a Panopticon in Your Pocket

Online retail giant double-charges customers by selling a phone that is simply a portal to its shopping service

June 24, 2014 1:45AM ET
by Joshua Kopstein

The new Fire phone runs the same operating system as the Kindles do, and it goes a step further by boosting Amazon’s shopping service in more novel (and unsettling) ways. It’s ironic that a year after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sparked international anxieties about government spying, Bezos is selling a phone that features not one or two but six cameras. Four of those cameras are forward facing and are capable of advanced head tracking and face detection, something Bezos said took the company four years to develop. They support an innocuous-sounding app called Firefly, which uses the phone’s cameras and microphone to watch, scan and listen to everything around the user. If you’re listening to music or watching a movie, the app will automatically identify and log your selections. Firefly even uses the phone’s camera mode to identify and save all the objects you come across in the physical environment, such as the books in your house, the landmarks you visit while sightseeing and the paintings you see at the museum. (Bezos says the app can recognize up to 100 million items.)

It may seem novel and quirky, but the message is clear: Amazon wants to turn every moment of your life into an opportunity to buy stuff. And crucially, it wants you to do so on a $649 device that channels that urge directly to its storefront, all the while gathering more precious data points about your communications, relationships and movements.
Double-charging customers

Amazon is not uniquely at fault for this trend, even if its implementations are the most explicit and unabashed. Facebook, for example, has a long history of slowly changing its default privacy settings so that users unwittingly share more data with more people — an obvious benefit to the company, whose business model depends on monetizing user data with targeted advertising. Commenting on an infamous privacy bait and switch in 2009 that left millions of Facebook profiles exposed to the entire Internet, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We decided that these would be the social norms now, and we just went for it.”

This is in some ways to be expected from free services such as Facebook and Google, which we grudgingly use knowing their true cost is in the data they collect from us. But it’s quite another thing for Amazon to charge money for devices that surveil and monetize their users and, moreover, serve as portals to the company’s online shopping mall.

Such double-charging of customers is becoming common practice in the technology space. In 2012, Verizon Wireless began selling data about its customers as part of a service called Precision Market Insights, including their smartphone Web browsing habits, geolocation information and app usage. Earlier this year it expanded the program to collect Web-browsing data from users when they log onto Verizon’s website to pay their bills.

This flies in the face of the common mantra about Big Data’s business model that if you’re not paying for it, you are the product being sold. Companies such as Amazon and Verizon want to have their cake and eat it too, making us both the customer and the product. And too often, they’re finding they can get away with it.

CONTINUED GOOD READ AT:

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/6/amazon-new-fire-phoneshoppingconsumerprivacy.html

Joshua Kopstein is a cyberculture journalist and researcher from New York City. His work focuses on internet law & disorder, surveillance, and government secrecy.

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"Amazon's New Phone is Not Your Friend" -- Its a Panopticon in Your Pocket (Original Post) KoKo Jun 2014 OP
So there is a smartphone OS that may out spy Google's Android OS? onehandle Jun 2014 #1
..as is Apple. Cooley Hurd Jun 2014 #3
Does Apple have "six cameras" yet. I guess that's next for them... KoKo Jun 2014 #5
Good luck ever getting Greenwald to write about that little tidbit... Blue_Tires Jun 2014 #10
You realize you're doing exactly what you accuse Greenwald of doing, right? Gravitycollapse Jun 2014 #13
But I'm just some nobody on the internet that no one pays attention to... Blue_Tires Jun 2014 #15
You've flattered yourself by assuming I'm talking about your influence. Gravitycollapse Jun 2014 #17
Where is my hypocrisy? Blue_Tires Jun 2014 #18
You've basically argued that agenda driven writing takes away from public discourse... Gravitycollapse Jun 2014 #19
We're thousands of anonymous posters on a political message board Blue_Tires Jun 2014 #20
Oh, I absolutely write with an agenda just like everyone else. Gravitycollapse Jun 2014 #21
"collect Web-browsing data from users when they log onto Verizon’s website" arcane1 Jun 2014 #2
Interesting. Where did the model of double charging begin? Trillo Jun 2014 #4
Go fuck yourselves, Amazon. Initech Jun 2014 #6
Creepy as hell. woo me with science Jun 2014 #7
how useful can it be, loaded with that much bloatware? eShirl Jun 2014 #8
I guess because it makes buying from AMAZON....much more easy? KoKo Jun 2014 #9
Minority Report. nt Demo_Chris Jun 2014 #11
kick Liberal_in_LA Jun 2014 #12
I will be surprised if this thing sells more than a few units. Egnever Jun 2014 #14
Thanks for the tip and what is the best phone for privacy sake? Uncle Joe Jun 2014 #16
We use a really dumb Nokia with prepaid minutes, and only turn it on for outgoing calls on the road. Hekate Jun 2014 #22
K&R woo me with science Jun 2014 #23

onehandle

(51,122 posts)
1. So there is a smartphone OS that may out spy Google's Android OS?
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 10:23 AM
Jun 2014

Wow!

Amazon and Google are lighting the path for the NSA.

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
5. Does Apple have "six cameras" yet. I guess that's next for them...
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 01:31 PM
Jun 2014

I don't think I'd want to be around anyone with that kind of ability to scan my house when they come to visit but "Selfie" addicts will probably love it.

"It’s ironic that a year after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sparked international anxieties about government spying, Bezos is selling a phone that features not one or two but six cameras"

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
10. Good luck ever getting Greenwald to write about that little tidbit...
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 07:32 PM
Jun 2014

One of the many reasons why agenda-minded writers are more of a detriment to the public discourse than an asset...

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
15. But I'm just some nobody on the internet that no one pays attention to...
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 02:16 AM
Jun 2014

and most likely bankrolled by the NSA or the Pentagon, as some DUers have noted...

I'm flattered, but I'm afraid you overstate my level of influence...

Gravitycollapse

(8,155 posts)
17. You've flattered yourself by assuming I'm talking about your influence.
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 02:30 AM
Jun 2014

I'm actually talking about how you're being transparently hypocritical. And not even just that but literally using the medium of accusation to confess your own sins.

Almost like writing out a murder indictment against someone else using the blood of your own murder victim as the ink. It's quite beautifully recursive.

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
18. Where is my hypocrisy?
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 02:37 AM
Jun 2014

What, exactly are my "sins"?

It's 0234 here in the east, so my mind isn't that sharp and I apologize but I'm not quite catching your intent...

Colorful metaphor, though...

And exactly how do I "flatter myself" when I say up front that in the grand scheme of things I'm insignificant and do not matter? Self-flattery isn't one of my "things"...If anything, I'm harsher and more unforgiving of myself...

Gravitycollapse

(8,155 posts)
19. You've basically argued that agenda driven writing takes away from public discourse...
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 02:52 AM
Jun 2014

While "contributing" to public discourse, on this forum, through the drive of a clear agenda.

Beautifully recursive.

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
20. We're thousands of anonymous posters on a political message board
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 03:15 AM
Jun 2014

we all have agendas...Or did your shit stop stinking all of a sudden?

I'm pretty sure I've laid out multiple times in previous threads exactly what my 'agenda' is, so there's no great mystery to uncover and I've made no effort to hide it...

In spite of whichever of my personal character flaws you wish to rub my face in, my earlier point still stands...

Gravitycollapse

(8,155 posts)
21. Oh, I absolutely write with an agenda just like everyone else.
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 03:35 AM
Jun 2014

The difference between you and I is that I don't try to scapegoat the essential nature of my own agenda by denying the drive behind agenda. Of course, that drive is to influence. If you didn't feel as though you were influencing in some way, you wouldn't bother to argue at all.

That Glenn Greenwald is more influential than you speaks only to the fact that he's better at a job we all aspire to master. If you were suddenly to become incredibly influential over night, would you all of a sudden abandon your agenda driven arguments? That's a ridiculous idea.

 

arcane1

(38,613 posts)
2. "collect Web-browsing data from users when they log onto Verizon’s website"
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 12:14 PM
Jun 2014

Well, that explains why I can't pay my bill online without first disabling Ghostery. It's only been the past couple of months that this has been the case.

Sigh... I'll have to start paying my Verizon bill from work

Trillo

(9,154 posts)
4. Interesting. Where did the model of double charging begin?
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 12:55 PM
Jun 2014

What I remember is that cable companies charge subscription fees and show the same customers commercials, so that's the earliest double-charging model that I remember. Are there other, earlier examples?

Initech

(99,881 posts)
6. Go fuck yourselves, Amazon.
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 02:48 PM
Jun 2014

This is one phone I will never purchase. Between this surveillance phone and the shady business tactics they employ that Stephen Colbert uncovered, I'm surprised they haven't been investigated by the SEC yet.

KoKo

(84,711 posts)
9. I guess because it makes buying from AMAZON....much more easy?
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 07:24 PM
Jun 2014

If I was an Amazon fanatic and had a Kindle...maybe I would like it.

But...I've stuck with B&N's NOOK which they just upgraded...and I'm fine, so far with it. At least they don't have a camera that can be "turned on" with spyware and I can still feel some sense of Privacy....

Hekate

(89,976 posts)
22. We use a really dumb Nokia with prepaid minutes, and only turn it on for outgoing calls on the road.
Wed Jun 25, 2014, 04:00 AM
Jun 2014

Sorry, but that's it. We're probably the last people we know that don't have a smartphone that we use all the time. Our kids use smartphones in lieu of landlines entirely.

This is beyond creepy, what Bezos is doing.

When the news about the NSA broke from Snowden/Greenwald I was the only person at DU that swore up and down that we Americans have already voluntarily given up all our data to Big Corporations and have paid good money to do so.

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