If they were doing it and someone discovered proof then the company would be sued out of business.
Are there any examples of large companies being sued out of business for something like privacy breach? I may be mistaken, because it’s one of the common conspiracies that large companies are listening though your mic, but weren’t there actually cases like that? With sometihng like FB or Alexa or whatever?
There have been multiple lawsuits about Apple, Google, and Amazon invading our privacy. Here is an example where Amazon is paying a settlement because employees were listening to private recordings of customers:
There’s a big difference between some people at a company unlawfully accessing customer data (which is basically what this is), compared to it being a secret company policy to harvest all that data to use for their other secret business practices.
Security of those microphones is a genuine and legitimate security concern. But that’s a very different situation to the conspiracy theory that ‘Google / Alexa is listening in to everything we say so that they can put an ad in-front of us based on the name of a product that they overheard’,
Are there any examples of large companies being sued out of business for something like privacy breach? I may be mistaken, because it’s one of the common conspiracies that large companies are listening though your mic, but weren’t there actually cases like that? With sometihng like FB or Alexa or whatever?
There have been multiple lawsuits about Apple, Google, and Amazon invading our privacy. Here is an example where Amazon is paying a settlement because employees were listening to private recordings of customers:
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/01/1179381126/amazon-alexa-ring-settlement
I’ve seen those, but my comment has been more about the
Because I don’t think that has ever happened.
There’s a big difference between some people at a company unlawfully accessing customer data (which is basically what this is), compared to it being a secret company policy to harvest all that data to use for their other secret business practices.
Security of those microphones is a genuine and legitimate security concern. But that’s a very different situation to the conspiracy theory that ‘Google / Alexa is listening in to everything we say so that they can put an ad in-front of us based on the name of a product that they overheard’,
There aren’t, they frequently only get a slap on the wrist for this kind of thing. It’s a cost of doing business to them.