“At Amazon, we take our responsibilities to our customers and their families very seriously,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
“Our devices and services are built to protect customers’ privacy, and to provide customers with control over their experience. While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us.”
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The fines given out in these cases – $US25 million for the Alexa data collection, and $US5.8 million for the Ring cameras – are arguably not significant measured against the $US514 billion Amazon made in revenue in 2022. But the FTC and other regulators are determined to send a message to big tech companies on data retention, especially when it comes to children.
In December, Fortnite-maker Epic Games agreed to pay $US520 million to settle accusations it illegally harvested data from pre-teen players, and tricked players into making purchases. In 2019, Google agreed to pay a $US170 million fine after allegations it had violated children’s privacy on YouTube.
In Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last year ordered Google to pay $60 million after alleging it collected data from Android phones without permission in 2017 and 2018.
Last year, the European Union fined Meta more than $660 million related to its data practices and children using Instagram, and this year it fined the company more than $2 billion for illegally transferring user data internationally.
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