What's Amazon Doing With Your Data?

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Good morning!

President Biden fell on stage during the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado yesterday. The White House Press Secretary said that he’s “totally fine.”

It appears Biden tripped over a sandbag that was used to steady his teleprompter. Later, Biden told reporters he “got sandbagged!"

It wasn’t the only tumble by a famous figure this week (see Speed Read).

Either way, a reminder to watch your step this weekend!

Mosheh, Jill, & Courtney

🗞 AMAZON & PRIVACY

WHAT IS AMAZON DOING WITH YOUR DATA?
If you have Ring doorbells or Amazon Alexa devices around your house, you know that cameras can listen to almost everything you say and do. That’s by design, so Alexa can respond to our questions about things like weather forecasts and requests for music, and the Ring doorbell can let us see and talk to whomever is at the door. But what does Amazon eventually do with all that information?

THE ALLEGATIONS & SETTLEMENTS
Amazon agreed this week to pay a $25 million penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations it violated a child privacy law related to its Alexa voice assistant. Separately, Amazon agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds for alleged privacy violations involving its Ring doorbell camera.

Let’s start with the allegations about Alexa and kids:

• The FTC says Amazon kept kids’ voice and location data recorded by its Alexa voice assistants— for years— even after some parents had requested that the company delete the recordings.

• The agency says Amazon kept the data as a way to train its algorithms, because kids speak differently than adults. But by doing so, Amazon allegedly violated the FTC Act and COPPA (the Child Online Privacy Protection Act).

AMAZON’S RESPONSE
In a statement, Amazon said it disagreed with the FTC’s claims, and that it designed Amazon Kids with COPPA in mind. Amazon also says parents have easy ways to delete recordings. (In 2019 Amazon made it possible to delete your voice history using Alexa, but it wasn't enabled by default.)

Mo News Tip: Here is how you can delete your voice history

Now to the Ring case…

• The FTC says Ring let employees and contractors have full access customers’ private videos, and in turn, some employees and contractors abused the access. For example, in 2017, a Ring employee viewed videos made by at least 81 female customers, “spying for months” on the women from cameras located in bathrooms and bedrooms.

• Amazon is also accused of having such lax security protections that hackers easily broke into two-way video streams “to sexually proposition people, call children racial slurs and physically threaten families for ransom.”

TIMELINE
Amazon bought Ring in 2018, and many of the alleged violations started before then. But the FTC says Amazon let the security lapses continue for two years after its purchase, until 2020.

AMAZON’S RESPONSE
In a statement, Amazon said: “Ring promptly addressed these issues on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry.” Amazon says it disagreed with the FTC’s claims but the settlements “put these matters behind us.”

⏳ SPEED READ

📌 Senate passes debt ceiling bill ahead of Monday default deadline. It now goes to Biden’s desk (WASHINGTON POST)

📌 Earth’s health failing in seven out of eight key measures, say scientists. Groundbreaking analysis of safety and justice hopes to inform next generation of sustainability policy (GUARDIAN)

📌 Some Utah schools ban bible from libraries due to vulgarity, violence (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE)

📌 National Spelling Bee champ crowned. Winning word was “psammophile” (WASHINGTON POST)

📌 Trump captured on tape talking about classified document he kept after leaving the White House (CNN)

📌 Jeffrey Epstein Revelations: 4,000 new documents obtained with details ahead of his death (AP)

📌 A convicted killer allegedly confessed to murdering his roommate. He's now charged with 2 murders and may be linked to other cases. The suspect told police "he was ready and prepared to kill again." (ABC NEWS)

📌 Worshipper describes fear during gunman’s deadly attack on Pittsburgh synagogue: The testimony came in the trial of Robert Bowers, who could face the death penalty if convicted. (POLITICO)

📌 Mark Zuckerberg unveils Virtual Reality headset days before Apple reveals its own (CNBC)

📌 William and Kate among 1,700 celeb guests at royal wedding of the year (DAILY BEAST)

📌 Elon Musk is back to being the world’s richest person with a blockbuster net worth of $192 billion. (FORTUNE)

📌 Succession’s Jeremy Strong reveals shocking and dark alternate ending he shot (VANITY FAIR)

📌 Kim Cattrall will appear in season 2 of the ‘Sex and the City’ spin-off (VARIETY)

📌 Bruce Springsteen falls on stage at Amsterdam concert, band rushes to help (EW)

📌 Billy Joel will end Madison Square Garden residency in 2024 (NY DAILY NEWS)

🗓 ON THIS DAY: JUNE 2

• 1953: Queen Elizabeth is crowned. The coronation of 27-year-old Elizabeth II in London's Westminster Abbey was the first televised major international event in history. Her reign of over 70 years is the longest of any British monarch in history.
  
  Gotta love the picture above of a young Charles (now King) visibly bored during the four-hour event.

• 1941: American professional baseball player Lou Gehrig, who was nicknamed “the Iron Horse” for his record-setting number of consecutive games played, died at age 37, two years after being diagnosed with ALS.

• 2001: Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, and Pink’s ‘Lady Marmalade’ hit #1 on the Billboard charts.

• 2004: Ken Jennings began his 74-game winning streak on Jeopardy. He would later become a host of the show in 2022.