This is a device shared by members of a household. It leaks.

I think I've just been in the Amazon ecosystem too long, I can't really figure out which part is surprising that it could be considered a 'leak'.

1 - That Alexa has access to information about any particular Amazon user? To me the registration process and features of the product make this extremely obvious, but maybe its not?

2 - That Alexa will send audio notifications related to the status of the account its linked to? This is the only thing that I feel is of any possible surprise. Most of the marketing around Alexa products show interactions initiated by the user.

3 - That 'private wish lists' aren't excluded from the full set of notifications? Amazon just calls them 'wish lists' and to me they are just cached shopping carts. I don't really see them as any more sensitive than any other information in the account.

On 3, something you've set as "private" being brought up in a public setting is surprising. You made it someway so that others couldn't see it, so it seems rational to assume it would be considered sensitive information.

If nothing else, giving the option to disable this on private lists would be nice.

The entire account is ‘private’ in this context.

Unless you explicitly share something, all of the information is protected equally except for credit card numbers and your password.

Like I mentioned above, if the author had a gift in their shopping cart or ‘save for later’ and Alexa notified on a price change, would they have a similar reaction?

It’s not a moot point now but either this is just a serendipitous occasion or somebody Amazon really listens, but I just opened up the app, went to manage lists, and there’s literally an option now to manage the list through Alexa or not.

>if the author had a gift in their shopping cart or ‘save for later’ and Alexa notified on a price change, would they have a similar reaction?

These are different in that the person involved did not explicitly set them as private. They might feel annoyed, but would realize they made the mistake.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. This is no more a “leak” than your monitor “leaking” data about your Amazon account when you’re logged in to amazon. This guy decided to buy this device, put it in his house so it could listen in on him, gave it his Amazon credentials, and it’s working as designed and promised. Why have something like this in your house unless you hate privacy already?

Don’t use your personal account for a device that is shared by many people.

Then what account should you use? Who has multiple Amazon accounts, and isn't that even against their ToS?

Don't think so, as part of signing up to become an Amazon Flex worker, the app explicitly suggests you create a separate Amazon account.

And so does your phone and your browser and every other device you allow other people to use. Is it a leak if you allow your wife to use your phone and receive a notification?