Amazon’s “long arm” is among the longest in the tech industry, itself notorious for corporations trampling on their customers’ and users’ privacy, and sometimes even civil rights.
Thanks to a plethora of services and devices, the Seattle-based giant has been able to literally reach into people’s homes like no other.
Now a story tells of an incident when a seemingly innocent user suffered, at the same time bringing up the question of how smart exactly Amazon’s “Smart Home” devices, and the infrastructure/processes behind them are.
Not the worst thing in the world, you might say – to get locked out of your Amazon account. Might even be good for your overall well-being. But in this case, the reason is pretty bad – an accusation of racism, that reliable sources say is baseless.
It all started in late May, with an Amazon delivery to the front door of a customer identified as Brandon Jackson, and ended in the said citizen being blocked from using “smart home” devices like Amazon Echo.
Another “smart home” device was involved- the Eufy doorbell. More specifically, a delivery driver accused Jackson of making racist comments, through the device.
According to Jackson – who has not provided evidence, such as screenshots – but with Louis Rossmann now – considered a trusted source – claiming to have seen the audio/video recordings and emails to back the story up – all that actually happened was the doorbell spouting out an automated response, “Excuse me, can I help you?”
Anyway, Jackson also claims that at the time he was supposed to engage in a form of racist abuse, he wasn’t even home.
But the driver who delivered the package was insistent. And Amazon – in possession, of course, of data from the man’s property – chose to err on the driver’s side. The result – “smart home” devices, all of them, were disabled as punishment.
The only sound conclusion to the case is that letting Big Tech into your home – and life – by way of becoming dependent on their services, their interpretations, and ultimately their mercy – is a genuinely bad idea.
In a statement to Reclaim The Net, an Amazon spokesperson said: “We work hard to provide customers with a great experience while also ensuring drivers who deliver Amazon packages feel safe. In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again.”
