Amazon Is About to Begin a Program Turning Your Alexa or Ring App Into a Node In a Massive Shared Network, and You Have One Week to Opt-Out of the Program

I don't think this is intended in a sinister way. I think they want people to share some low-bandwidth bluetooth power on these devices to spread the internet.

But this does edge up to what a FaceBook executive called "The Creepy Line" -- especially as regards the very low-key, zero-publicity way they're rolling this out.

And only giving you a week to opt your device out of the shared public wi-fi network.

Amazon customers have one week to opt out of a plan that would turn every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the US into a shared wireless network, as part of the company's plan to fix connection problems for its smart home devices.

The proposal, called Amazon Sidewalk, involves the company's devices being used as a springboard to build city-wide "mesh networks" that help simplify the process of setting up new devices, keep them online even if they're out of range of home wifi, and extend the range of tracking devices such as those made by Tile.

But Sidewalk has come under fire for the apparent lack of transparency with which Amazon has rolled out the feature, as well as the limited time available for users to complete the tricky process required to opt out. Other critics have expressed concerns that failing to turn the setting off could leave customers in breach of their internet service provider's terms and conditions.

I imagine so-- I imagine the standard ISP contract forbids providing part of the bandwidth free to all users within range.

The feature works by creating a low-bandwidth network using smart home devices such as Amazon Echoes and Ring security cameras. At its simplest, it means that a new Echo can set itself up using a neighbour's wifi, or a security camera can continue to send motion alerts even if its connection to the internet is disrupted, by piggybacking on the connection of another camera across the street. Other devices that don’t need a high-bandwidth connection, such as smart lights, pet locators or smart locks, can use Sidewalk all the time.

But the company's plans have caused alarm among observers. Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technology officer of the US Federal Trade Commission, told the tech site Ars Technica: "In addition to capturing everyone's shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber."

Below, a video about how to turn this feature off.

Note that first of all, you need an Alexa app on your phone -- something a lot of Alexa or Ring owners don't even have. To get the app, you have to go to the Itunes story or Google Playstore and then download the Alexa app.

Then follow the instructions below.

Personally, I could not find the setting to disable Amazon Sidewalk. But I believe that's because I have a first-generation Echo, and first-generation Echos do not have this feature built into them.

I think. According to this Reddit answer.

Which I'm not sure is authoritative. I haven't yet confirmed that this doesn't apply to first gen Echoes.

Other people in the responses say they used to have the option to opt-out of Sidewalk, but it's now been removed from their menus.

There's an outcry about this, but of course Amazon doesn't care. They're a fucking monopoly. Jeff Bezos' space venture is a total failure and so he got some of his pet senators to pour $10 billion of public money into his failing company.

Buh muh private monopolies.

I hope you guys have more luck than I did.

posted by Ace at 03:19 PM

| Access Comments