Summary Bullets:

• Amazon Alexa is relaying recorded consumer speech for analysis by Amazon staff and contractors for product improvements.
• There is a simple workaround to turn off the default communications between Alexa and Amazon employees.

Alexa apparently needs a little help from human sources to better decipher user requests. Amazon acknowledged that individual staff and contractors in a number of countries including Romania, India, Costa Rica, and the U.S. each evaluate as many as 1,000 recorded requests to Alexa during their nine-hour shift. The staffers feed notes into software that provides better context to requests, which Amazon said will ultimately produce a better user experience. Continue reading “Amazon Catches Heat for Alexa’s Dependence on Human Intellect” →

Summary Bullets:

• Google is under fire for failing to disclose that its Nest Secure home alarm system has an embedded microphone.
• Privacy advocates are calling for significant change in light of the digital giant’s checkered data handling history.

When Google announced in early February that the company had added a feature to its Google Nest Secure system that allows it to work with Google Assistant to become a smart speaker, some consumers were surprised to learn the home security and alarm system has an embedded microphone. Google copped to failing to disclose the integrated microphone, admitting that detail should have been included in product information. Continue reading “Google in Hot Water Over Latest Privacy Misstep” →

Summary Bullets:

• Consumers’ unease with the misinformation, disinformation, and mishandling of personal digital data is driving new regulations and investment in developing new ways to protect content.
• Inrupt, a startup founded by Tim Berners-Lee, wants to shake up the status quo with technology that will effectively decentralize the web and put more control in the hands of end users.

Twenty-nine years after the first successful Internet transmission using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the protocol’s developer, Tim Berners-Lee, wants to disrupt the web status quo. In an effort to address mounting concerns about privacy on the web, Berners-Lee is forging a path to return control over data access and storage to end users. Berners-Lee’s new startup, Inrupt, is pushing for adoption of an open source platform which could, if widely implemented, effectively decentralize the web. The platform, known as ‘Solid,’ takes aim at the current digital data model in which a relatively small number of dominant web players maintain significant access and storage control over the majority of end-user information. Continue reading “Web Pioneer Lays Out Ambitious Plan to Disrupt Digital World Order” →

Summary Bullets:

• Facebook executives have been on a summer apology tour after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco came to light but new information surfaced that shows the company is still not adequately protecting consumer personal data.
• Lawmakers aren’t waiting for tech to self-regulate with California’s legislature passing a sweeping consumer privacy bill and federal regulators looking to follow suit.

Digital advertising, an $88 billion industry in 2017, is driving notable revenue expansion for some of the top social media platforms.  However, this growth has brought with it some questionable practices in how user information is mined and shared.  Facebook became a focus of intense scrutiny when it came to light that during the 2016 U.S. presidential election U.K.-based political consulting house Cambridge Analytical tapped data from tens of millions of Facebook users to build out voter profiles without express permission.  Facebook executives conducted something of an apology tour, testifying in front of a U.S. Congressional Committee and promising more transparency about how user data is handled and applied. Continue reading “Privacy and Data Integrity in the Disinformation Era” →