I Will Never Buy My Partner an Alexa
Even though he really wants one
When my partner asked for an Alexa device for Christmas, I refused to buy him one. I explained that while I ordinarily would welcome suggestions of what to get him, this year I would be ignoring his less-than-subtle hints about smart speakers, and he should brace himself for something else on his wishlist instead.
Having discussed the treasure trove that is our personal data when we watched the Netflix documentary The Great Hack together last year, I was surprised that he would even consider welcoming into our shared home yet another way for technology companies to monetize our personal information.
“But your phone is already listening to you and tracking your every search,” he said. “What makes a smart speaker any different?”
To some extent, I can see where he was coming from. I have a Huawei phone (the Chinese company Huawei’s phones were banned by networks including Verizon and AT&T in 2018 after being labeled a security threat). I spend my working days in the marketing field logged into my personal accounts on the same social networks that Cambridge Analytica used to help manipulate the 2016 U.S. election and the Brexit campaign here in the U.K.
But if your house is burning down, you don’t say “to…
