My mom always taught me to share, it just makes you a better person, but one thing I don’t want to share is my wi-fi.
If you have an Amazon device, for example an echo, or echo dot, it is helping build a Wi-Fi network for Amazon right under your nose and you don’t even realize it.
That’s right, your Amazon Echo will share your Wi-Fi network with your neighbors unless you opt-out of the feature.
The sharing is made possible because of Amazon Sidewalk a feature that according to Amazon, makes devices work better by extending low-range bandwidth to ensure the devices in your home remain online.
What does this mean? For instance, if you and your neighbor have Amazon products and you both haven’t opted out when your neighbor buys a Ring camera the camera can send data via YOUR wi-fi signal.
More from NPR:
“Amazon says that customers’ privacy and security are “foundational” to how it has built Amazon Sidewalk. The network has three layers of encryption and has protections to keep customers from viewing data from others’ Sidewalk-enabled devices. Amazon also put together a white paper outlining Sidewalk’s privacy and security measures.
But some privacy and security experts are still concerned.
“I feel like the bigger motivation here is to create a private surveillance network. I suspect they’re seeing this as a real opportunity for kind of bridging all these different Ring devices in particular,” says Jen King, privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
Ashkan Soltani, a privacy expert and the former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission, sees Sidewalk as yet another realm Amazon is seeking to dominate.
“In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as [Amazon Web Services] is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global [internet service provider] with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber,” Soltani told technology news site Ars Technica.”
So, HOW DO YOU OPT OUT? You can follow these step by step directions if you want to opt out of Sidewalk for your Echo device.
I have 3 Amazon devices at my house…how many do YOU have?
6-4-21
