Due to privacy violations, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) closed two settlements with Amazon totaling $30.8 million.

In the first case, former employees of Ring, the smart doorbell company acquired by Amazon in 2018, spied on and viewed videos taken by customers without their consent. The lawsuit filed by the FTC was for $5.8 million to pay consumers reimbursement.

The second complaint, worth $5 million, alleged the violation of children’s privacy rights when it did not delete the voice recordings made by the personal assistant Alexa at the parents’ request and kept them longer than necessary.

The COPPA Rule requires, among other things, that an operator of a commercial website or online service targeted at children under the age of 13 notify parents of information it collects from children, obtain parental consent for the collection of that data, and allow the delete this information at any time. In addition, such service is prohibited from retaining information collected from children under 13 for longer than is reasonably necessary to provide the service.

“Illegally retained voice recordings provided Amazon with a valuable database to train the Alexa algorithm to understand children, benefiting its results at the expense of children’s privacy,” the FTC said.

These settlements are the agency’s latest effort to hold big tech companies accountable for policies that put profits ahead of privacy. In a statement, Amazon responded: “While we disagree with the FTC’s allegations regarding Alexa and Ring and deny violating the law, these settlements put those issues behind us.”

Source: Startupi