It is technically true that devices with wake words are always listening, but that's not the whole truth. In that idle mode they're only listening for the wake

It is technically true that devices with wake words are always listening, but that's not the whole truth. In that idle mode they're only listening for the wake word. Only once you've said the wake word does it start recording. This is evidenced by the fact that you can't set a custom wake word on them (you may only select from a small list on which they were trained). Nobody has provided evidence that they're always recording and sending (only conspiracy theories). It's possible those theories are true, but there's currently no evidence.