Alexa Users Want Ad Target Case Reinstated

 Amazon users are pressing a federal appellate court to reinstate their lawsuit accusing the company of wrongly targeting ads based on people's voice interactions with Alexa-enabled devices, MediaPost is reporting.

In papers filed last week with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for Ohio resident James Gray and Massachusetts resident Scott Horton ask the court to reject Amazon's argument that it disclosed its practices.

“Amazon offers up not one single disclosure anywhere on its website that says 'Alexa voice recordings may be used for targeted advertising purposes' or anything remotely equivalent,” counsel writes.

The new filing comes in a battle that began in 2022, when Gray and Horton alleged in a class-action complaint that Amazon violated Alexa users' privacy, and engaged in misleading and unfair conduct, by serving targeted ads based on voice interactions.

They sued soon after researchers from the University of Washington, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, and Northeastern University posted the paper “Your Echoes are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem,” which concluded that Amazon “processes voice data to infer user interests.”

The authors didn't allege that Amazon secretly listened to conversations, or directly shared voice recordings with third parties.

Amazon responded by saying it “is not in the business of selling data,” and doesn't share Alexa requests with ad networks. At the same time, the company acknowledged it targeted ads to consumers based on their transactions with Alexa.

“Similar to what you'd experience if you made a purchase on Amazon.com or requested a song through Amazon Music, if you ask Alexa to order paper towels or to play a song on Amazon Music, the record of that purchase or song play may inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads,” the company stated.