It was Christmas Day 2017. Ashley and I were celebrating Christmas with my parents. One of the gifts my dad received stood out the most. An Amazon Echo. For about twenty minutes we went through, what I think is a typical ritual, of dumb and conspiratorial question asking. At the end of the ritual, Ashley said, "I don’t trust it". I’ll never have one of those in my house. That lasted all of about eight months until she was gifted one by her company. Her skepticism almost immediately gave way to the convenience provided by it. In a matter of a week, she started using it as a day planner, timer and source of entertainment.
She has never totally trusted the information collected by it but figures the risk vs reward of using it is worth it. As for me, I have zero trust in Amazon’s use of all the information they collect. Think about it. It’s legalized spying. Crazy if you really think about it. If your home was wiretapped, you’d be freaked out. In reality, it is with a smart speaker, but because we like what’s doing it, we justify it. Mostly, I think Amazon is just interested in collecting all of the data to make even more money off of us. Nevertheless, Amazon’s made a key change, if you trust them to tell the truth, means you now can delete that information daily. You just have to use these are the “magic” words, "Alexa, delete what I just said " or "Alexa delete what I said today".
Amazon didn’t make a big deal with this announcement. It was part of their Echo 5 rollout. This new feature is supposed to work on all Amazon smart speakers but makes the process of deleting your data as easy as using the smart speaker.
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