“This is not a consumer device company that takes privacy very seriously,” says Gamero-Garrido. Since people use smartphones far more than they do with Alexa or Kindle, he says an Amazon smartphone today would “significantly increase the scale of potential privacy harm.”
Gamero-Garrido thinks Amazon could use Transformer as a data-gathering tool to track how people use its devices, build out its ad network, and compete with the likes of Alphabet and Meta, which are facing regulatory scrutiny in the European Union and California.
One way to do this is the Fire TV approach. This is Amazon’s TV streaming platform integrated into third-party TVs (or via dongles); Although you may not have purchased a Fire TV-powered TV from Amazon, the data collected by the operating system is still owned by the company.
“Whether they ultimately succeed with this phone supplement device, or whether they ultimately use a similar model where they install their operating system on other phones or “lightweight” phones that are made by third parties, it has the same effect,” he says. “Ultimately, what Amazon is doing is centralizing all network traffic through its own infrastructure so it can improve its advertising business.”
If Amazon can detect that someone is sick by the sound of their voice, it can recommend that you buy specific cold medicine from Amazon Health – this is an actual patent that Amazon owns. If it’s now powered on a device you carry everywhere, Gamero-Garrido says it can listen to more of your conversations and serve you better ads.
Even with its past regressions, customers have shown general acceptance of Amazon’s hardware, says Kassem Fawaz, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who researches security and privacy in consumer devices.
“I think that when it comes to products, unfortunately, consumers value utility and price more than privacy,” Fawaz wrote in an email to WIRED.
The accelerator here could be Amazon’s Devices and Services Lead, Panos Panay, who joins the company in 2023. Panay famously helped transform Microsoft’s Surface line of computers into an aspirational hardware brand through his “pump” and emotionally charged keynotes.
Panay has already brought that kind of energy to some Amazon hardware announcements, like the Kindle Scribe ColorSoft, though it hasn’t been able to match the success of the Surface. If Amazon is really making smartphones, it will have to generate a lot of excitement to attract customers.
“If anyone could do it, it would be Panos,” says Geronimo. “For this, I have full confidence. He is the right person for this type of initiative.”
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