Echo speaker: how Amazon uses your voice interactions for targeted advertising

A study claims that Amazon exploits our conversations with Alexa in order to complete our advertising profiles and sell ads at full price.

This has certainly happened to you before: you discuss a subject with a loved one, and shortly after, advertisements for a product or service relating to it appear in your applications or your web browser. Coincidence? Previous request? Or are we really being listened to by our connected devices?

A carefully studied methodology

A dozen researchers from the universities of Washington, California-Davis, California-Irvine and Northeastern have published a study according to which Amazon uses user interactions with its voice assistant Alexa in order to serve them targeted advertising.

The American giant is very opaque about the way it processes data from conversations with Alexa. The researchers had to create many fake profiles, compare different usages, simulate interactions and analyze the statistical differences between profiles in advertising to determine that the information recorded by Alexa is used for the purpose of establishing an advertising profile more full of users.

In addition, the academics have developed a “homemade” Echo speaker from a custom Raspberry Pi coupled with the Alexa Voice Service SDK. By simulating an Amazon Echo identity, the researchers were able to examine unencrypted incoming and outgoing network traffic, and therefore know what type of data is exchanged, and with whom.

Listening that allows soaring advertising rates

The study claims that interaction data with Echo speakers is transmitted to Amazon, but also to third-party publishers who develop skills, these extensions for Alexa. Additionally, Amazon shares such information with at least 41 of its advertising partners.

For advertising agencies, such data is considered a jackpot, because it allows extremely precise targeting. So much so that advertisers are willing to pay up to 30 times more to make sure their ads reach people who are likely interested in what they have to sell.

This exploitation of Alexa data is however contrary to Amazon’s privacy policies and the firm’s statements regarding respect for the privacy of Echo speaker users.

Contacted by The Registeran Amazon spokesperson reacted to the study, saying: Many conclusions of this research are based on inaccurate inferences or speculation by the authors, and do not accurately reflect how Alexa works.. He adds that ad pricing is influenced by several factors, but voice queries and Alexa interactions aren’t one of them. He also insists that Amazon does not sell personal data, which the study does not claim anyway.

Source : The Register