Amazon offers customized ads using Alexa voice data

In recent years, many companies have been taking steps to protect personal data. Amazon, one of the largest technology companies, once again made a sound about the personal data breach. According to research published by many universities in the USA, Amazon offers customized advertisements using Echo and Alexa data.

Do Echo devices collect personal data?

According to research conducted by the University of Washington, University of California Davis, University of California Irvine and Northeastern University, Amazon uses the voice data of Echo devices to serve targeted ads both on its own platforms and on the web. According to research, Amazon violates its own Privacy Policy. According to the research, Amazon collects data from users’ conversations with their Echo devices and uses this data for customized ads. Amazon uses this data for advertising both on its own and external platforms. It is also among the information that Amazon shares this data with at least 41 different advertising partners. In addition, according to the research, Alexa data is in serious demand and is sold for 30 times more than other data.

Amazon’s response was delayed

Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild, who made a statement to The Verge, did not deny the allegations. Lauren stated that Amazon creates customized ads both on its own platforms and on the platforms Amazon advertises using interactions with Alexa. Lauren stated that this situation is similar to collecting data from Amazon.com. In this case, if you place an order from Alexa, Amazon uses this data to serve customized ads. In addition, Amazon stated that it uses customized ads on its Echo devices as well. If an ad-supported platform is used on Echo devices, Amazon customizes these ads using your data. Amazon also stated that the company does not record or share the audio recordings in any way. The company uses the audio data to create transcripts and shares them with developers as data only. Amazon stated that the research was flawed and did not accurately reflect how Alexa works.

Researchers have developed their own audit framework to measure advertising data collection. Using this framework, test characters and control characters, it has been seen that data is shared among many parties. However, the researchers noted that Amazon does not really share audio recordings and the data is only shared as transcripts.

Amazon, privacy

Amazon spokesperson Lauren stated that the third parties that collect data are transparent about this situation in their privacy policies. It was also stated that users have a chance to not allow data sharing. However, research shows that 70% of third parties that receive data from Amazon do not include Amazon or Alexa in their Privacy Policy. In addition, only 10% of these parties gave transparent information on this issue. The researchers noted that smart speakers and smart assistants should be transparent about data collection.