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A detailed look at how Amazon collects, stores, and uses your personal data.
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Poor
Amazon's privacy score of 20/100 reflects their data collection practices, transparency, incident history, and user control options. This score indicates significant privacy concerns that users should be aware of.
Amazon was fined 746 million euros by Luxembourg's data protection authority in 2021, the largest GDPR fine at the time, for processing personal data in violation of EU regulations.
In 2023, the FTC fined Amazon $25 million for violating children's privacy by retaining Alexa voice recordings and geolocation data from kids indefinitely despite parental deletion requests.
Ring employees were caught in 2022 watching customer camera feeds without consent. The FTC fined Ring $5.8 million and required deletion of improperly collected data.
In 2020, Amazon fired an employee who leaked customer email addresses to a third party, affecting millions of customers in a breach disclosed in a brief SEC filing.
A 2023 FTC complaint revealed Amazon used dark patterns to enroll millions of users into Prime subscriptions and made cancellation intentionally difficult through a process internally called 'Iliad.'
Reducing Amazon's surveillance footprint requires addressing multiple interconnected services. Start with your Amazon account at amazon.com/hz/mycd/myx, then go to 'Manage Your Content and Devices' to review and delete stored data. Navigate to Your Account > Manage Your Data to request a full data download and see what Amazon has collected. Under Alexa Privacy settings at amazon.com/alexa-privacy, delete all voice recordings, enable auto-deletion of voice history, and turn off 'Help improve Alexa' and 'Use messages to improve transcriptions.' For Ring devices, disable Neighbors app sharing, turn off video sharing with police, review shared user access, and consider replacing Ring with a local NVR system that stores footage on-premises. In your Amazon account settings, go to Advertising Preferences and disable personalized ads. Turn off browsing history tracking under Your Account > Browsing History, then clear all stored history. For Amazon shopping, avoid using the mobile app which collects significantly more data than the website. Use a browser with tracker blocking when shopping on Amazon. Opt out of Amazon Sidewalk (the neighborhood mesh network) through the Alexa app under Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk. Review and remove third-party Alexa skills that may access your data. Disable Alexa Drop-In features and review communication permissions. If you use Kindle, turn off device synchronization and popular highlights. For maximum privacy, cancel Prime, remove payment methods, close your account, and shop at local retailers, farmers markets, or privacy-respecting online alternatives. Delete the Amazon app from all devices and block Amazon tracking domains via a DNS-level blocker.
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