Am I completely crazy or AIBU getting rid of Alexa?

[Konicek007]

Hello, call me paranoid but..would like some opinions.
We have Alexa Echo dot in the living room, purely because of the music, we not use it for anything else. We love it playing music through it. Hi
Yesterday me and my daughter ( 8 yrs) were having a conversation , her telling me about her horse toy she not longer wants, saying something in lines she doesn’t want to play with it anymore as she is too big now, to get rid of it etc..
Suddenly Alexa buttered in saying something like You are being warn and reported etc. We haven’t heard the message clear as we also had a music playing from radio.
None of us used the woke up word Alexa for her to respond, plus the music was playing in background but we did heard her saying about warning us..
Now I heard stories about these speakers are actually spying on your home but I never believed it.
My friend husband works for well know computer company as IT developer and he always kept saying to avoid these things in our home.
Now I’m actually paranoid and thinking to get rid of Alexa.
Your opinions please. ( don’t laugh)

Is Jan Koum (co-founder of Whatsapp) paranoid? He grew up under communist rule. Or the other co-founder Brian Acton?

doesnt understand

Jan Koum sold out to facebook didn`t he?

People saying “all they’ll hear is me telling DH off/talking to the cat etc” are wrong.

They hear the tv programmes/news reports you watch and any opinions you voice on them, they hear how often you talk about getting a takeaway, they hear the phone calls you have including when you read out your 16 digit card number, expiry date and 3 digit number on the back of your card, they hear you calling the bank/sky/EE and giving your passwords, they hear you planning holidays, they hear your children asking for certain toys, they hear you talking about your aches and pains and all sorts of other conversations you have in the “privacy” of your own home. All of which can be used to control what marketing you receive.

And don’t kid yourself that that data can’t be hacked and stolen either.

Well if it remembers my passwords i wish it would remind me

We have a firestick for catching up on more4 and we pop the batteries out when we’ve found the programme to watch (leave the battery cover off and just lift the end of one battery to break the connection

You are all so paranoid. You know that Siri on your iPhone is also listening for the wake up words all the time too, right? I don’t think we’ll see you all giving up your iPhones so easily

@justasking111 the company sold out to fb yes

what I have in my diary

So they know where you go, what you do, who you see on a daily basis.

DD has one and I can chat with her, hundreds of miles away, whilst doing household chores.

Like on a phone with hands free?

Well if it remembers my passwords i wish it would remind me

Have you tried asking?

Tell me how Alexa can listen what is her listening range? It is in the kitchen can she see me typing on my lappy in the next room, can she hear my telephone conversation from the next room. Is she linked into my paypal account?

I guess if I lived, ate and slept in a one room studio it would be possible but in a house with different rooms??

For the life of me I can't understand why anyone would ever want one of these things in there house My husband is disabled by a painful degenerative back condition. It has made his life so much easier, he can turn lights on and off, play music, watch tv without having to move.

There's nothing exciting going on in my house so they are welcome to listen in as long as they don't tell DIL when I have a moan about her latest hissy fit, although I can't imagine how many staff they'd need to be monitoring everyone.

I guess if I lived, ate and slept in a one room studio it would be possible but in a house with different rooms??

Some people on this thread have 5 in their houses. They even bring them to the bathroom.

I think it’s not about using your data,though they’re going to do that if not already. I think it’s about training voice recognition algorithms. Photo tagging meant that there were billions of labelled images, and neural networks were able to process those images so that now there is pretty good facial recognition. This is analogous. Even if you don’t have a device, just like even if you personally didn’t get tagged in photos a lot, the data needed to train computers to recognise individual voices and parse what they’re saying is being produced.

Have a look at this article for how Amazon listen to and use your voice data.
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/amazon-alexa-echo-listening-spy-security-a8865056.html

My OH bought me a Withings watch which records steps taken, pulse rate, quality of sleep etc. Later he ordered one for himself, the latest version and was told the roll out had been delayed and that he could expect it in the autumn. He wrote to them when it didn’t arrive and received apologies from them. As a gesture of goodwill they sent him a digital bathroom scale. Nice scale, wouldn’t have dreamed of buying one at £150. His watch arrived. Life continued as normal.

One day several months later I popped onto the scale then off in disgust...as usual.....when the reading changed to flashing words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”. It was my birthday and I totally freaked out.

I haven’t used that scale since!

@JuanSheetIsPlenty

Yeah it says it doesnt know that

okay, probably being thick again

but everything I can find to tell me what Google knows about me says "sign in to your google account" which I don't have.

and why would google know what I look like?! (No, I don't post photos online).

Yeah it says it doesnt know that

I bet someone in amazon does

Amazon employees may be listening in to certain conversations for various reasons but unless they speak the language how will they know what is being said. Ditto our other techno. gadgets. If this system were good, future crimes would be averted surely.

I take it everyone with a Boots Advantage Card, Tesco Clubcard, Nectar Card etc. understands that every purchase they make is recorded for marketing purposes and to build a profile.

Your employer may post your photo online, which is what mine did.

I take it everyone with a Boots Advantage Card, Tesco Clubcard, Nectar Card etc. understands that every purchase they make is recorded for marketing purposes and to build a profile.
Yes but it's not sitting in my purse recording everything I say.
I think accepting that loyalty cards track your purchases and websites will use tracking cookies is one thing. Accepting that a device is going to listen to you and report that information back even when you aren't using it is something very different.

@Lexplorer dont worry about the farting . If you ask it it will fart along with you