Quote:
Originally Posted by rcentros
Some folks won't know. The solution, force Amazon to ASK their customers to turn it on. Why should the users bear the responsibility of opting out?
Would you welcome a pilferer into your house who regularly stole change from your piggy bank even if he agreed not to come into your house if you asked him not to? Suppose you didn't know he was coming into your house? Would it okay then, after all he's not stealing much, just a little change, maybe scoping out your house to tell his burglar friends what you have — but, for now, he's promised not to tell them. What's the problem?
If Amazon asked first there would be no problem. They know damned well a lot of people won't know how to turn it off, or will forget about it and their mesh will slip in through the cracks, whether it's wanted or not. Amazon is getting sleazier by the minute.
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As much as people want to minimize the opt-out/opt-in issue, it's really the heart of the matter. The very fact that Amazon has made this opt-out leads many of us to suspect their motives. Despite the claim that "everyone" knows they can opt out, it's just not true--MR readers are hardly representative of larger society in their knowledge of tech devices. Amazon knows that people will be ignorant of or indifferent to Sidewalk--that's what Amazon is counting on.
With all the analogies that have been suggested, I don't believe anyone's mentioned the one that I immediately thought of--Vizio's secret data collection with its smart TVs, which resulted in a class action suit. Yeah, I know, Amazon says it's not collecting data, and Amazon is apparently being more transparent than Vizio was. Still, taking bandwidth seems more intrusive than tracking data. I wonder if there will be a class action suit down the road.