28 Nov New Study Says Consumers Who Buy Smart Speakers Have Given Up on Privacy
According to a new study from the University of Michigan, people who buy smart speakers such as Amazon’s Echo are likely to have accepted that the erosion of privacy is now a fact of life.
The researchers interviewed 17 smart speaker users and 17 people who intentionally have not bought a smart speaker yet, and had the smart speaker users keep a weekly log of how they used the device. Assistant professor Florian Schaub and his team found that speaker owners did not bother taking steps to protect their privacy, since most devices have a mute button that allows the user to turn off the microphone, but most users never used it.
The team also found that users rarely went through their activity logs where they can review and delete recordings. Instead of using this feature to protect personal privacy, the users actually used it to spy on housesitters and babysitters.
Source: Motherboard
