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A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon

154 points by josephcsible 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
scrum-treats 3y ago
I hope that customer sues Amazon. Because in that info discovery phase, there will be sooo much that is revealed about surveillance mechanisms linked to "smarthome" tech (e.g., eufy, ring, alexa, roomba, thermostats) and Amazon. The world needs to know, beyond inference.
- Croftengea 3y ago
  I don't think the customer would be able to stand against Amazon's legal machinery on their own. But EFF could be interested to take this case.
- Fernicia 3y ago
  I'm not sure how/if you're inferring that from this incident. The ban was caused by a delivery driver reporting a racist doorbell interaction. It would have been better for Amazon if they reviewed that footage before acting, but it seems like they weren't able (especially because they asked to be sent it by the accused).
  - scrum-treats 3y ago
    This is "according to Amazon," akin to "trust me bro." We know Amazon will make up anything. Hence, lawsuit to discover the facts beyond Amazon's random email. Edit: not sure why this is downvoted as there is much evidence to confirm this position of Amazon willful omission of truth, and downright lying (e.g., "our employees don't pee in bottles" for warehouse and delivery employees, "this account registered too many returns" for accounts that show under 10 returns over multiple years).
    - jwestbury 3y ago
      I worked at Amazon for over five years, both in AWS tech support, and as a systems engineer and SRE (well, their version of SRE). I hate the company. I actively attempt to sabotage their recruiting efforts -- I respond to people on LinkedIn telling them to take any other job offer if at all possible. I've cancelled my Prime account, and I don't order from them unless I can't get a product elsewhere. About the only Amazon product I actively and intentionally use anymore is Audible. Seriously, fuck Amazon. But Amazon is pretty committed to customer privacy, and in many cases it is genuinely impossible for them to obtain access to data. Obviously, I can't provide technical details here, so you'll have to to just trust me -- but I promise you, there's a good chance they're being honest about not having access to this data without a request to the customer.
    - Fernicia 3y ago
      Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but don't act like evidence to the contrary is supporting your position.
      - scrum-treats 3y ago
        > Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but don't act like evidence to the contrary is supporting your position. Apologies, however I don't understand your position. To me this reads as word salad. (1) There is no evidence to the contrary. (2) You've made a blanket assumption that I have strong priors against Amazon. If you could reword your statement I am happy to try and understand what your point (assuming there is one).
        interroboink 3y ago
        This is just a drive-by comment from an outsider, but in case it helps you: When you say "We know Amazon will make up anything.", it comes across (to me, at least) as an over-broad statement. The sort of statement someone with strong priors against Amazon would make. We _don't_ know that. You cite some valid examples of Amazon being sleazy, but even if you listed 100 examples, we still don't know that. Examples just mean they have made up some things, at some times — not everything, all the time. I imagine you were just using hyperbolic language for effect, but that's just my 2¢ POV, in case it helps you avoid being misinterpreted in the future (:
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    IMHO it absolutely does not matter what the internal investigation determined and how the doorbell interaction went, it is unacceptable to disable the purchased equipment no matter what - even if they were literally convicted of a felony. If a company wants to stop future sales to a certain customer, that's fine, but all past purchases should still work.
  - briandear 3y ago
    Is saying racist things illegal? [in the USA] If you said something racist on an iPhone telephone call, would that presumably allow Apple to lock you out of your devices?
- bagels 3y ago
  What cause of action?
jstarfish 3y ago
> However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their internal investigation. It seems more sensible to impose a temporary delivery restriction or purchasing ban on my account. Ah, Amazon: the paragon of social justice. Racist dollars are still green. This is up there with the FLDS hating the federal government sooooo much, they signed everybody they could up for food stamps. To "bleed the beast," of course.
AJ007 3y ago
I wouldn't touch any of that Amazon smart home stuff after how many employees had access to Ring and Alexa data.
- shever73 3y ago
  I am happy to be completely Amazon-free (apart from using web services hosted on AWS). I can’t express in strong enough terms how much of a privacy nightmare and how utterly invasive Echo devices are.
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
This is awful, I'm glad that the victim wasn't actually saying something racist, because it would be too risky to defend them. But companies should not be allowed to arbitrarily cut off access to purchased products like this. Especially when they are designed to be integral to day to day life. I think this practice should be illegal, even if they did say horrible things, attacked the driver, and set fire to amazons headquarters. It is simply unacceptable under any circumstance.
- 40yearoldman 3y ago
  At a minimum, If somebody invest in such an ecosystem and is banned from it, the company should have you buy back the equipment at original retail value. This is just a start. There has to be some monetary penalty for the company to nudge them into less flipped reactions. I also think there maybe should be blowback for false accusations on people who report them. Basically. You better damn well be sure you head what you heard. It’s becoming to easy to yell racist run away and ruin somebody’s life. A secondary of this is the media. We keep saying there are racist everywhere. Even Biden said the biggest problem America has is white supremacy. People are going to find a racisim with out without it one actually existing.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    It is not normal, well adjusted people who are online writing that we need a "bloodier Waco" simply because a criminal is being indicted, it is white supremacists. Biden was right. Whose life has been ruined by a single false accusation of racism? Racism absolutely does exist, unfortunately. That weird digression aside, yeah. People are spending money on content that can be taken away on a whim, or basing much of their lives around email platforms that can deactivate their accounts at any moment. There should be stronger legal protections.
    - fortran77 3y ago
      > Whose life has been ruined by a single false accusation of racism? Let’s start with the woman who tried to rent a Citi Bike last week. And how about the Duke lacrosse players?
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
@dang this should be merged with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 which was flagged for being vlog spam to this article. Or maybe just change the link on that one.
- richardboegli 3y ago
  Hi dec0dedab0de, @ don't work on this site. If you need to get dang's attention, email hn@ycombinator.com When I saw your comment that's what I did. Thanks.
francisduvivier 3y ago
Interesting here how the HN rules seem to be a limitation. I'd say the fact that Amazon is using it's power in a very unexpected way should be highlighted somehow in the title. But because the original blog writer doesn't do that, current HN rules say you should not do that either. Instead, HN rules say you should post the original article and keep the original title. But in this case, by doing that you are effectively hiding what actually happened. This original title sounds so uninteresting that I'd say it would be warranted here to post the article with the title of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748
- lolinder 3y ago
  I strongly disagree. That rule exists specifically to remove any ambiguity about when it's "warranted" to change the title and when it's not. The author's title accurately reflects the author's perspective on the incident and the overall tone of the piece. Changing the title to be more inflammatory would color the perspective of readers in a way that the author didn't intend, and would make the conversation on here considerably worse. HN is intended for curious discussion, not outrage brigading, and the headline rule is one of several defense mechanisms that attempt to keep it that way.
peppermint_gum 3y ago
>Let me be clear: I fully support Amazon taking measures to ensure the safety of their drivers. However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their internal investigation. This attitude is the reason why this keeps happening. I don't agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my own device.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  That's exactly what the author wrote: They would have understood if Amazon had refused to deliver packages to a house where the owner threw racial slurs at the delivery people, but think that barring them from using their smart home devices was inappropriate.
  - peppermint_gum 3y ago
    The author said it's inappropriate "during their internal investigation". The way I understand it, he supports the actions of Amazon, but he wishes there was a presumption of innocence.
- marcod 3y ago
  > I don't agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my own device. That's not what the ban was about. His account was banned because they wanted to protect their drivers from future racist encounters. Obviously, they should be very sure that something actually happened, before taking such a drastic measure. The minimum would be to at least hear both sides.
  - dogma1138 3y ago
    Then they should ban that delivery address and force them to use a locker or at most prevent an account from purchasing goods for delivery on Amazon. What happens if an Amazon driver encounters someone else at your property or scans your item at the wrong address? What happens when you have no counter evidence or simply get stone walled by their CS? The EULA/T&C likely “allow” Amazon to do this however the FCC and other regulatory bodies should start regulating the market to prevent stuff like this from happening. Amazon seems to also be interested in getting into healthcare, insurance and banking sectors should they be able to completely blacklist someone and deny them access to prescriptions or their bank accounts even if they were racist assholes?
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
> This wasn’t just a simple inconvenience, though. I have a smart home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices @Author: If I put it to you that you made a bad decision a while back and this is the predictable consequence, what would your response be?
- plagiarist 3y ago
  Seems to be along the lines of, "I am seriously considering discontinuing my use of the Echo device." I do not get this mindset at all.
  - throwway120385 3y ago
    I would've ripped it all out after I got that email from the executive.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I know code supposedly needs to be maintained... but I have so many FOSS devices around my house that I havent touched in years. (admittedly I do hobbyist embedded, so its not like you can get much of this stuff off the shelf) Meanwhile my $20 Wyze security camera has gotten worse over the years with all the updates, fees, reduction in features, etc... On a similar note, it seems my Nest continues to lie about the temperature, seemingly worse than ever. Its interesting how often buying the mainstream product gets punished, but DIY is robust.
teddyh 3y ago
> This incident has led me to question my relationship with Amazon. After nearly a decade of loyalty, I’ve been given a harsh reminder that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic measures. “'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.” — <https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=en https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=...>
- namaria 3y ago
  Seriously, automating your home around a single point of failure that depends on servers you don't control is a very brittle approach.
  - teachrdan 3y ago
    To be fair, Amazon's servers have better uptime than mine.
    - namaria 3y ago
      Service reliability here is trumped by governance. The servers were up when this person's account was blocked and they lost access to all usability on their devices...
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Deeply relying on any service provider for anything puts you in a very vulnerable position regardless of how excellent that provider is. Things change, company priorities shift, companies get acquired by other companies, go out of business, etc. Current performance is not a guarantee of future performance. Sometimes, you have to accept that vulnerability. I have exactly one option for getting electrical service, for example. But in general, people should avoid this sort of arrangement to the greatest degree possible. Especially for something where there are tons of other options, like home automation.
  - marcod 3y ago
    It's really not that bad. I use Amazon Echo to turn on/off my lights. If my home automation doesn't work, I can still just use the light switch to turn them off and then they will come on. Or if there is an Amazon issue, I can use the app of the bulb manufacturer instead. It's a convenience feature and if it doesn't work, it's a minor inconvenience. Many of us would be much more screwed if something happened to our Google or Apple account... and that same story of erroneous bans have happened to many people.
boneitis 3y ago
> the Eufy doorbell had issued an automated response: "Excuse me, can I help you?" (No intent to discredit or argue against TFA's primary points) Maybe I'm misreading the.. tone? I think I'd be pretty (as in, very) mortified if my smart doorbell spoke this, let alone even have an automated response at all? (Although, I don't really use smart appliances, if that's relevant.) Or, when employing the automated response, I'd probably care to make sure it's fairly apparent that it's a machine, on a quick second-pass thought.
- jacamera 3y ago
  Agreed! Doesn't justify anything that Amazon did in this case but it sounds like a pretty off-putting "feature".
- odysseus 3y ago
  I wonder if Eufy allows you to turn that off. My doorbell is completely silent and I like it that way. The only reason I’d use such a feature is to scare away a package thief if nobody was home.
desireco42 3y ago
I had similar thing over something more sinister... I disputed a charge I didn't recognize on Amazon Store Card and Synchrony sent me a new card. I can explain about the charge but not super relevant. I thought all is good... Then I got an email weeks later asking me to pay this amount to Amazon, around $500. I told them this was squared away, I already paid using other means and thing is resolved. This dude from chargebacks demanded that I submit card they can use to charge and resolve this "order". Since I already bought the thing, I explained once and didn't want to respond more. Then everything stopped working like described in this post. I could log into Amazon but I couldn't access any of the pages. Kindle stopped working... that was the thing that I thought is too much. After few days back and forth, they restored my access, I had to call bank few times as this guy would disable and unlink my new Amazon Store card from the account. After that, all my books, endless purchases not being accessible... I decided to take a break for a little bit. Amazon Prime was due for renewal, so I didn't renew. I cancelled all subscriptions through Prime, once I was able to access it. I cancelled everything but Kindle Unlimited (sorry I just can't do this). So this is where we are. I am not shopping nearly as much, I use alternative stores, Chinese retailers get way more direct business from me. I am sure I will enable it, but I just don't have to do it anytime soon.
- oidar 3y ago
  Do you use anyone else besides Alibaba?
  - desireco42 3y ago
    Yes, Temu rules, there are others as well, I know my female friends love Shein but that clothes mostly.
dahwolf 3y ago
I honestly believe we need legislation. As society goes digital, it is inevitable that people link ever more things of real importance to account systems of Amazon, Google, the like. These accounts cannot be Russian roulette, where heuristics may randomly lock you out. Imagine losing your AWS account, and your entire infrastructure is gone. Or losing your Gmail account, your proxy to 200 other accounts. Losing home automation. Losing your webshop. We need to have some rights. Real world infrastructure should never be shut down without consent, false positive or not. Account suspensions should come with a documented and verifiable reason, not randomness and "we can't share details". There has to be a robust and speedy appeal process that is equally transparent. Concerns must be separated. If you violate terms on service A, the blast radius should be service A, not your entire life. And yes, companies should absolutely be sued for real damages done if they fail to have the above in place.
simonblack 3y ago
If your house-life is dependent on the availability of the internet, you're doing it wrong. It's like the all-electric houses that are really great. But I had one of those and when the power was out, we had no running water either (the water-pump was electric) and were restricted to one flush. We couldn't even make a hot cup of coffee.
danron100 3y ago
It should be made illegal if it isn't already due to that "you agreed to these terms" nonsense
- briandear 3y ago
  Is “can’t make a racist noise on a device you purchased” part of TOS? And is a delivery driver imagining a wrong part of the TOS?
Prickle 3y ago
There need to be new laws that explicitly hands over all permissions relating to a device, to the purchaser. Make it illegal to require apps or accounts for purchased devices, and make it a requirement that they can be rooted. There is no way to escape this other than through the law. Because accounts give these companies recurring monetization that in theory, last as long as the device itself. Honestly, I also want similar legislation around Ebooks. We should be allowed to legally rip the books out of a service and keep them as PDFs. It makes is incredibly easy to just read-aloud with a text to speech device.
- briandear 3y ago
  You don’t actually buy an ebook, you buy a license to that ebook.
  - Prickle 3y ago
    I tend to ignore that when the ebook is the same price as the paperback edition.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Even if you believe it is Amazon's place to punish people for hateful comments, keep in mind that what's hateful is subject to rapid change. It wasn't that long ago that making the OK sign with your fingers was suddenly racist and there was no out for "I didn't know that was racist". Even after the origin of the OK sign being racist was discovered to be trolls on 4chan trying to bait society into looking stupid, it was still considered real racism because "real racists are really using the ok sign to show real racism". Then a few weeks later, the whole thing was completely forgotten. If you weren't actively keeping up with what's the latest in what's considered racist, you were at risk of being cancelled and having your life turned upside down for making a sign you'd made thousands of times before without any incident. What degree of obligation does one have to keep up with the latest fashions in racism?
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Now imagine if this was Neuralink. We're quite eager to install potentially literally killswitches in our bodies, apparently. Insert witticism about Darwin Awards here.

154 points by josephcsible 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I hope that customer sues Amazon. Because in that info discovery phase, there will be sooo much that is revealed about surveillance mechanisms linked to "smarthome" tech (e.g., eufy, ring, alexa, roomba, thermostats) and Amazon. The world needs to know, beyond inference.

Croftengea 3y ago
I don't think the customer would be able to stand against Amazon's legal machinery on their own. But EFF could be interested to take this case.
Fernicia 3y ago
I'm not sure how/if you're inferring that from this incident. The ban was caused by a delivery driver reporting a racist doorbell interaction. It would have been better for Amazon if they reviewed that footage before acting, but it seems like they weren't able (especially because they asked to be sent it by the accused).
- scrum-treats 3y ago
  This is "according to Amazon," akin to "trust me bro." We know Amazon will make up anything. Hence, lawsuit to discover the facts beyond Amazon's random email. Edit: not sure why this is downvoted as there is much evidence to confirm this position of Amazon willful omission of truth, and downright lying (e.g., "our employees don't pee in bottles" for warehouse and delivery employees, "this account registered too many returns" for accounts that show under 10 returns over multiple years).
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    I worked at Amazon for over five years, both in AWS tech support, and as a systems engineer and SRE (well, their version of SRE). I hate the company. I actively attempt to sabotage their recruiting efforts -- I respond to people on LinkedIn telling them to take any other job offer if at all possible. I've cancelled my Prime account, and I don't order from them unless I can't get a product elsewhere. About the only Amazon product I actively and intentionally use anymore is Audible. Seriously, fuck Amazon. But Amazon is pretty committed to customer privacy, and in many cases it is genuinely impossible for them to obtain access to data. Obviously, I can't provide technical details here, so you'll have to to just trust me -- but I promise you, there's a good chance they're being honest about not having access to this data without a request to the customer.
  - Fernicia 3y ago
    Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but don't act like evidence to the contrary is supporting your position.
    - scrum-treats 3y ago
      > Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but don't act like evidence to the contrary is supporting your position. Apologies, however I don't understand your position. To me this reads as word salad. (1) There is no evidence to the contrary. (2) You've made a blanket assumption that I have strong priors against Amazon. If you could reword your statement I am happy to try and understand what your point (assuming there is one).
      - interroboink 3y ago
        This is just a drive-by comment from an outsider, but in case it helps you: When you say "We know Amazon will make up anything.", it comes across (to me, at least) as an over-broad statement. The sort of statement someone with strong priors against Amazon would make. We _don't_ know that. You cite some valid examples of Amazon being sleazy, but even if you listed 100 examples, we still don't know that. Examples just mean they have made up some things, at some times — not everything, all the time. I imagine you were just using hyperbolic language for effect, but that's just my 2¢ POV, in case it helps you avoid being misinterpreted in the future (:
- PeterisP 3y ago
  IMHO it absolutely does not matter what the internal investigation determined and how the doorbell interaction went, it is unacceptable to disable the purchased equipment no matter what - even if they were literally convicted of a felony. If a company wants to stop future sales to a certain customer, that's fine, but all past purchases should still work.
- briandear 3y ago
  Is saying racist things illegal? [in the USA] If you said something racist on an iPhone telephone call, would that presumably allow Apple to lock you out of your devices?
bagels 3y ago
What cause of action?

jstarfish 3y ago

> However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their internal investigation. It seems more sensible to impose a temporary delivery restriction or purchasing ban on my account. Ah, Amazon: the paragon of social justice. Racist dollars are still green. This is up there with the FLDS hating the federal government sooooo much, they signed everybody they could up for food stamps. To "bleed the beast," of course.

AJ007 3y ago

I wouldn't touch any of that Amazon smart home stuff after how many employees had access to Ring and Alexa data.

shever73 3y ago
I am happy to be completely Amazon-free (apart from using web services hosted on AWS). I can’t express in strong enough terms how much of a privacy nightmare and how utterly invasive Echo devices are.

dec0dedab0de 3y ago

This is awful, I'm glad that the victim wasn't actually saying something racist, because it would be too risky to defend them. But companies should not be allowed to arbitrarily cut off access to purchased products like this. Especially when they are designed to be integral to day to day life. I think this practice should be illegal, even if they did say horrible things, attacked the driver, and set fire to amazons headquarters. It is simply unacceptable under any circumstance.

40yearoldman 3y ago
At a minimum, If somebody invest in such an ecosystem and is banned from it, the company should have you buy back the equipment at original retail value. This is just a start. There has to be some monetary penalty for the company to nudge them into less flipped reactions. I also think there maybe should be blowback for false accusations on people who report them. Basically. You better damn well be sure you head what you heard. It’s becoming to easy to yell racist run away and ruin somebody’s life. A secondary of this is the media. We keep saying there are racist everywhere. Even Biden said the biggest problem America has is white supremacy. People are going to find a racisim with out without it one actually existing.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  It is not normal, well adjusted people who are online writing that we need a "bloodier Waco" simply because a criminal is being indicted, it is white supremacists. Biden was right. Whose life has been ruined by a single false accusation of racism? Racism absolutely does exist, unfortunately. That weird digression aside, yeah. People are spending money on content that can be taken away on a whim, or basing much of their lives around email platforms that can deactivate their accounts at any moment. There should be stronger legal protections.
  - fortran77 3y ago
    > Whose life has been ruined by a single false accusation of racism? Let’s start with the woman who tried to rent a Citi Bike last week. And how about the Duke lacrosse players?

dec0dedab0de 3y ago

@dang this should be merged with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 which was flagged for being vlog spam to this article. Or maybe just change the link on that one.

richardboegli 3y ago
Hi dec0dedab0de, @ don't work on this site. If you need to get dang's attention, email hn@ycombinator.com When I saw your comment that's what I did. Thanks.

francisduvivier 3y ago

Interesting here how the HN rules seem to be a limitation. I'd say the fact that Amazon is using it's power in a very unexpected way should be highlighted somehow in the title. But because the original blog writer doesn't do that, current HN rules say you should not do that either. Instead, HN rules say you should post the original article and keep the original title. But in this case, by doing that you are effectively hiding what actually happened. This original title sounds so uninteresting that I'd say it would be warranted here to post the article with the title of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748

lolinder 3y ago
I strongly disagree. That rule exists specifically to remove any ambiguity about when it's "warranted" to change the title and when it's not. The author's title accurately reflects the author's perspective on the incident and the overall tone of the piece. Changing the title to be more inflammatory would color the perspective of readers in a way that the author didn't intend, and would make the conversation on here considerably worse. HN is intended for curious discussion, not outrage brigading, and the headline rule is one of several defense mechanisms that attempt to keep it that way.

peppermint_gum 3y ago

>Let me be clear: I fully support Amazon taking measures to ensure the safety of their drivers. However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their internal investigation. This attitude is the reason why this keeps happening. I don't agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my own device.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
That's exactly what the author wrote: They would have understood if Amazon had refused to deliver packages to a house where the owner threw racial slurs at the delivery people, but think that barring them from using their smart home devices was inappropriate.
- peppermint_gum 3y ago
  The author said it's inappropriate "during their internal investigation". The way I understand it, he supports the actions of Amazon, but he wishes there was a presumption of innocence.
marcod 3y ago
> I don't agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my own device. That's not what the ban was about. His account was banned because they wanted to protect their drivers from future racist encounters. Obviously, they should be very sure that something actually happened, before taking such a drastic measure. The minimum would be to at least hear both sides.
- dogma1138 3y ago
  Then they should ban that delivery address and force them to use a locker or at most prevent an account from purchasing goods for delivery on Amazon. What happens if an Amazon driver encounters someone else at your property or scans your item at the wrong address? What happens when you have no counter evidence or simply get stone walled by their CS? The EULA/T&C likely “allow” Amazon to do this however the FCC and other regulatory bodies should start regulating the market to prevent stuff like this from happening. Amazon seems to also be interested in getting into healthcare, insurance and banking sectors should they be able to completely blacklist someone and deny them access to prescriptions or their bank accounts even if they were racist assholes?

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

> This wasn’t just a simple inconvenience, though. I have a smart home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices @Author: If I put it to you that you made a bad decision a while back and this is the predictable consequence, what would your response be?

plagiarist 3y ago
Seems to be along the lines of, "I am seriously considering discontinuing my use of the Echo device." I do not get this mindset at all.
- throwway120385 3y ago
  I would've ripped it all out after I got that email from the executive.
hospitalJail 3y ago
I know code supposedly needs to be maintained... but I have so many FOSS devices around my house that I havent touched in years. (admittedly I do hobbyist embedded, so its not like you can get much of this stuff off the shelf) Meanwhile my $20 Wyze security camera has gotten worse over the years with all the updates, fees, reduction in features, etc... On a similar note, it seems my Nest continues to lie about the temperature, seemingly worse than ever. Its interesting how often buying the mainstream product gets punished, but DIY is robust.

teddyh 3y ago

> This incident has led me to question my relationship with Amazon. After nearly a decade of loyalty, I’ve been given a harsh reminder that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic measures. “'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.” — <https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=en https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=...>

namaria 3y ago
Seriously, automating your home around a single point of failure that depends on servers you don't control is a very brittle approach.
- teachrdan 3y ago
  To be fair, Amazon's servers have better uptime than mine.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Service reliability here is trumped by governance. The servers were up when this person's account was blocked and they lost access to all usability on their devices...
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Deeply relying on any service provider for anything puts you in a very vulnerable position regardless of how excellent that provider is. Things change, company priorities shift, companies get acquired by other companies, go out of business, etc. Current performance is not a guarantee of future performance. Sometimes, you have to accept that vulnerability. I have exactly one option for getting electrical service, for example. But in general, people should avoid this sort of arrangement to the greatest degree possible. Especially for something where there are tons of other options, like home automation.
- marcod 3y ago
  It's really not that bad. I use Amazon Echo to turn on/off my lights. If my home automation doesn't work, I can still just use the light switch to turn them off and then they will come on. Or if there is an Amazon issue, I can use the app of the bulb manufacturer instead. It's a convenience feature and if it doesn't work, it's a minor inconvenience. Many of us would be much more screwed if something happened to our Google or Apple account... and that same story of erroneous bans have happened to many people.

boneitis 3y ago

> the Eufy doorbell had issued an automated response: "Excuse me, can I help you?" (No intent to discredit or argue against TFA's primary points) Maybe I'm misreading the.. tone? I think I'd be pretty (as in, very) mortified if my smart doorbell spoke this, let alone even have an automated response at all? (Although, I don't really use smart appliances, if that's relevant.) Or, when employing the automated response, I'd probably care to make sure it's fairly apparent that it's a machine, on a quick second-pass thought.

jacamera 3y ago
Agreed! Doesn't justify anything that Amazon did in this case but it sounds like a pretty off-putting "feature".
odysseus 3y ago
I wonder if Eufy allows you to turn that off. My doorbell is completely silent and I like it that way. The only reason I’d use such a feature is to scare away a package thief if nobody was home.

desireco42 3y ago

I had similar thing over something more sinister... I disputed a charge I didn't recognize on Amazon Store Card and Synchrony sent me a new card. I can explain about the charge but not super relevant. I thought all is good... Then I got an email weeks later asking me to pay this amount to Amazon, around $500. I told them this was squared away, I already paid using other means and thing is resolved. This dude from chargebacks demanded that I submit card they can use to charge and resolve this "order". Since I already bought the thing, I explained once and didn't want to respond more. Then everything stopped working like described in this post. I could log into Amazon but I couldn't access any of the pages. Kindle stopped working... that was the thing that I thought is too much. After few days back and forth, they restored my access, I had to call bank few times as this guy would disable and unlink my new Amazon Store card from the account. After that, all my books, endless purchases not being accessible... I decided to take a break for a little bit. Amazon Prime was due for renewal, so I didn't renew. I cancelled all subscriptions through Prime, once I was able to access it. I cancelled everything but Kindle Unlimited (sorry I just can't do this). So this is where we are. I am not shopping nearly as much, I use alternative stores, Chinese retailers get way more direct business from me. I am sure I will enable it, but I just don't have to do it anytime soon.

oidar 3y ago
Do you use anyone else besides Alibaba?
- desireco42 3y ago
  Yes, Temu rules, there are others as well, I know my female friends love Shein but that clothes mostly.

dahwolf 3y ago

I honestly believe we need legislation. As society goes digital, it is inevitable that people link ever more things of real importance to account systems of Amazon, Google, the like. These accounts cannot be Russian roulette, where heuristics may randomly lock you out. Imagine losing your AWS account, and your entire infrastructure is gone. Or losing your Gmail account, your proxy to 200 other accounts. Losing home automation. Losing your webshop. We need to have some rights. Real world infrastructure should never be shut down without consent, false positive or not. Account suspensions should come with a documented and verifiable reason, not randomness and "we can't share details". There has to be a robust and speedy appeal process that is equally transparent. Concerns must be separated. If you violate terms on service A, the blast radius should be service A, not your entire life. And yes, companies should absolutely be sued for real damages done if they fail to have the above in place.

simonblack 3y ago

If your house-life is dependent on the availability of the internet, you're doing it wrong. It's like the all-electric houses that are really great. But I had one of those and when the power was out, we had no running water either (the water-pump was electric) and were restricted to one flush. We couldn't even make a hot cup of coffee.

danron100 3y ago

It should be made illegal if it isn't already due to that "you agreed to these terms" nonsense

briandear 3y ago
Is “can’t make a racist noise on a device you purchased” part of TOS? And is a delivery driver imagining a wrong part of the TOS?

Prickle 3y ago

There need to be new laws that explicitly hands over all permissions relating to a device, to the purchaser. Make it illegal to require apps or accounts for purchased devices, and make it a requirement that they can be rooted. There is no way to escape this other than through the law. Because accounts give these companies recurring monetization that in theory, last as long as the device itself. Honestly, I also want similar legislation around Ebooks. We should be allowed to legally rip the books out of a service and keep them as PDFs. It makes is incredibly easy to just read-aloud with a text to speech device.

briandear 3y ago
You don’t actually buy an ebook, you buy a license to that ebook.
- Prickle 3y ago
  I tend to ignore that when the ebook is the same price as the paperback edition.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

Even if you believe it is Amazon's place to punish people for hateful comments, keep in mind that what's hateful is subject to rapid change. It wasn't that long ago that making the OK sign with your fingers was suddenly racist and there was no out for "I didn't know that was racist". Even after the origin of the OK sign being racist was discovered to be trolls on 4chan trying to bait society into looking stupid, it was still considered real racism because "real racists are really using the ok sign to show real racism". Then a few weeks later, the whole thing was completely forgotten. If you weren't actively keeping up with what's the latest in what's considered racist, you were at risk of being cancelled and having your life turned upside down for making a sign you'd made thousands of times before without any incident. What degree of obligation does one have to keep up with the latest fashions in racism?

CatWChainsaw 3y ago

Now imagine if this was Neuralink. We're quite eager to install potentially literally killswitches in our bodies, apparently. Insert witticism about Darwin Awards here.