With a collection of skills used to send messages, make phone calls, play music, and control connected home devices, Amazon has sold 600 million Alexa-enabled devices since it launched in 2014. Alexa is a voice assistant with an “always on” microphone constantly listening for its wake word. Once heard, Alexa sends audio to Amazon’s server’s for processing.

It sends what it hears and, if a connected device includes cameras, what it sees, to Amazon’s servers. 

My biggest issue with Alexa? I can’t fully control what Amazon does with my information. And it should be yours, too.

Because I often have the ability to control how much companies can know about me and what they can do with the information, not mindfully managing their abilities feels like I am abdicating my personal agency.

In other words, by controlling how Amazon and Alexa use my data, I exercise my agency. I choose what it can and cannot do with my voice, with my actions, and with what I purchase.

Otherwise, if a person does not manage these settings, they effectively consent to letting Amazon and all its affiliated third parties carve up your data and sell it to the highest bidder.

Not cool.

Designed For Privacy?

Amazon says Alexa is designed to protect your privacy. Those very words are on the second app page you see when you set up Alexa.

Amazon does provide an ability to manage some of how it works with your data: not all of it, only some of it. However, the settings and web pages are so convoluted you’d need a personal tech guide to help you navigate them.

Good news: you’ve come to the right place.

After leaping through all the flaming hoops, though, you still need to trust Amazon to delete your information. Based on prior findings, that trust may not be well placed.

You’re better off not sending your data to Amazon. Period.

Siri vs. Alexa

I trust Siri. 

Yes, it’s persnickety. Siri doesn’t work as slickly as Alexa. The days I swear at Siri far outnumbered the days I don’t especially when I have to repeat requests or restart the phone to clear its cache.

Regardless, there’s a clear difference in how Apple handles data it gathers via Siri compared to how Amazon handles Alexa data.

	Siri	Alexa
Wake Word Detected	Processes simple requests on device and sends audio to Apple servers for more complex tasks	Audio recordings to Amazon servers
Audio Storage	Not stored unless user opts in	Stored for unlimited time unless user opts out
Human Review of Audio	User must opt in to allow	Unless user opts out, may be reviewed to ensure accuracy
Data Linked to User	Linked to random ID, not User ID	Linked to user’s Amazon account

Apple requires all users to opt in to surrender their privacy. When a company allows me to make the choice of how I want it to use my data, it signals that, in its eyes, I am not a commodity. I’m on more of an equal footing with it, and can decide how to engage.

When a company makes the choice for me, then buries the ability for me to opt out behind weasel words nested in multiple pages of policy palaver, I am the commodity. That signals to me that I’m simply a consumer to be monetized while my privacy is marginalized so its profits can be maximized.

To me, the choice is clear.

The Echo Dot I bought a week ago stays in my house for now, but it’s been moved to the basement. It can play me music and podcasts while I tinker.

Protect Yourself

Maybe you see things differently. Perhaps you enjoy the convenience of Alexa, and its ability to connect you with family and friends or to automate your home.

If you do, there are three groups of settings you should review to begin to wrest control of your information away from Amazon. Walking through all three pages will take less than 10 minutes provided you’re already signed in to your Amazon account in a web browser.

There are multiple settings to manage on this page. You’re welcome to review all the caveats and explanations Amazon provides. Just remember all those words  are designed to convince you to not disable the settings.

The first four areas – Review Voice History, Review History of Detected Sounds, Review Smart Home Device History, and Review Activity History – will give you a glimpse into some of the information Amazon stores about you. It’s worth a peek to get an understanding of the breadth of data you’re sharing.

Click through to “Manage Skill Permissons and Ad Preferences.” Scroll down to the section titled “Interest-Based Ads from Third Parties” and toggle it off.

You will still receive ads, but they will no longer be targeted to you based on how you use Alexa and what it records and stores on Amazon’s servers.

You can reset your advertising IDs. Go ahead, but you’ve already blinded the machine.

Click back to the previous page, then select “Manage Your Alexa Data.” Here’s where you can have a true impact.

• Voice Recordings > Choose how long to save recordings: Select “Don’t save any recordings.” It also deletes any recording Amazon has stored for your account.
• Smart Home Device History > Choose how long to save history: You can’t turn this off like you did the prior setting, but you can limit how long Amazon can access it to enrich your advertising profile. Select “Choose how long to save history” and limit it to three months.
• Detected Sounds History > Choose how long to save history: Same here. Limit it to three months.
• Voice Purchasing: It’s your call. I turned it off so I have more friction in my buying journey. Taking a few more minutes to buy the thingamajig helps me not buy something I don’t need.
• Interest-Based Ads from Amazon on Alexa & Help Improve Alexa: There is nothing you can do to stop seeing ads. Making them less effective limits the likelihood you’ll make a purchase. Toggle them off while you also turn off allowing human review of your recordings and using your messages to improve its service. They’re all on by default.

2. Your Ads Privacy Choices

Having controlled how Amazon can use the data it gleans about you from Alexa, you can also limit its ability to use what else it knows about you to serve you with ads. Visit this page – https://www.amazon.com/privacyprefs – to opt out of cross-context behavioral ads.

What’s that? Think of it like browsing in a shopping mall with a drone hovering over your shoulder recording what you look at and consider. 

When you browse the web or use apps, what you like and do is remembered by those sites. When you go to a different website or app, that stored information is used to show you ads, called cross-context behavioral ads, related to things you’ve looked at before in other places.

If you don’t want Amazon following you around, opt out.

3. Interest-based ad preferences

According to the information on this page – https://www.amazon.com/adprefs – opting out means Amazon will not:

• “Use information about your use of our store and services to deliver ads to you off of Amazon’s own properties
• Deliver ads to you on Amazon that use information provided by the advertiser
• Show you ads on Amazon and our affiliates’ sites, apps, and services, based on your activity on Amazon and our affiliates’ sites, apps, and services”

Uh, no thank you. Check the radio button beside “Do not show me interest-based ads provided by Amazon” and click “Submit.”

You can also delete your personal information from Amazon’s ad systems on the same page. One click, and it’s done.

You may be completely pleased with Alexa recording your voice and sounds from your home and saving them on Amazon’s servers forever. You may be fine with Amazon making money from all the data it’s able to harvest from your online habits, Prime Day and other purchases, etcetera.

The tradeoff of your personal privacy in exchange for convenience and a more banging playlist may be worth it to you.

That is your choice. 

And I do not understand it.

Go change your Amazon and Alexa privacy settings now, then forward this to one friend who needs to know about this.