
Amazon's Alexa now at Marriott hotels - Bhilai
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-amazon-com-marriott-intnl/amazons-alexa-will-now-butler-at-marriott-hotels-idUKKBN1JF16V
======
metajack
A few hotels already have tablets pointing cameras at the room (including a
recent Marriott I stayed at). This just adds more crap I have to unplug or
disable. Lovely.

I can't wait until we all find out these things have all been systematically
rooted and collecting blackmail on folks.

It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the
hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous
guests of the room.

~~~
jonknee
> It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the
> hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the
> previous guests of the room.

With miniature cameras being widely available for years now what exactly is
new?

~~~
chimen
This pushes the acceptance much further.

"It's ok to do this. Look! Everybody does it. Why are you always so paranoid?
If you have nothing to hide why are you fighting it?!"

~~~
jonknee
Well it's not like this is a new platform designed for Marriott, it's an
extremely popular product millions of people have in their homes and offices.
It is already accepted.

~~~
dingaling
Objection, appeal to popularity

"Millions" sounds overwhelming until expressed as a proportion of the
population of the USA, Australasia, Canada and EU: just shy of a billion.

These devices have been accepted and adopted by a small minority of people to
whom they are available.

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kerng
What could possibly ever go wrong putting a third party corporate spying
machine in each room? It's unbelievable how much blind and naive trust there
is.

~~~
voidwtf
Yea, I can’t believe all these people walking around with these spying
machines in their pockets. Subjecting the rest of us to their second hand
spying. Oh wait, were we talking about Alexa or cellphones/smartphones?

~~~
e1ven
Personally, I disable "Hey, Siri" and other watchword interfaces.

That said, I think that if someone complains about X, and you reply "But what
about Y?!" you're not really addressing their concern.

~~~
piptastic
If a person complains about X while actively doing/using Y, then they are not
really addressing their concern either.

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e1ven
Is there any way to opt-out of having these in the room?

I'm not comfortable sleeping in a room with one of these devices.

~~~
jedberg
Other's have said you could unplug it, but you may also find it to be the
easiest way to do certain things, so you could also mute it so it's available
in case you want it.

Of course you'd have to trust the mute function, but Amazon is actually pretty
strict about honoring their explicit privacy guarantees (like when you push
the mute button it's actually muted).

~~~
blacksmith_tb
On the minus side, when muted the entire LED ring glows bright red, which is
not ideal in a room you're trying to sleep in... so you need to cover it up
too.

~~~
chopin
You could cover it with an anvil...

------
dreamcompiler
BTW the last few times I've checked in to a Marriott, the TV has been on,
playing some kind of ad trying to sell me a temporary Netflix subscription or
something. I find this incredibly annoying. I never use the TV in a hotel
room, and I'd like to find a hotel chain that has no TVs in the rooms period.

------
corobo
Friendly reminder about the time Marriott fired customer support employee to
get back in China's good books

[https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-
hourly-...](https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-
employee-for-liking-a-tweet-by-a-tibetan-separatist-group/)

~~~
JTon
> ... Jones, who worked on social media accounts for the company, had “liked”
> the tweet, on behalf of Marriott International... The problem? It had been
> posted by a Tibetan separatist group...

This reads to me like the employee went rogue and took politically sensitive
stance on behalf of the company. I'd label that brand damaging negligence and
it seems like fair grounds for dismissal. Maybe there's more to it.

~~~
corobo
One like doesn't sound rogue. If the dude'd gone out of his way to like every
claim of Tibet being its own country, sure.

In this case though I'd imagine he saw a "Thanks Marriott" and liked it
because that's the thing companies do. I've had companies miss my oozing-in-
sarcasm messages and like them in the past even.

The thing to think about is how much time does he really have per action? If
it was you on personal twitter, minutes per action. As a customer support
person answering hundreds of messages a day, probably closer to a second or
two per action

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forkLding
Is there a reason for why major tech companies are heavily pushing their smart
speakers? Their seems to be a lot more marketing push going on than when they
were pushing out new phones/tablets/hardware etc in the past (Amazon fire,
Google Pixelbook, Google Chromecast, Amazon Roku etc.)

~~~
nautilus12
Passive data collection on a massive scale

~~~
maxk42
This is the correct interpretation: Google and Amazon thrive on data.

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ErikAugust
Remember the old joke, "In Soviet Russia, TV watches you"?

Now, in the West, people actually pay for devices that surveil them.

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ghaff
On the one hand, I could see this being incredibly useful. Program it to
answer all sorts of typical guest questions including those specific to the
property/location. On the other hand, I can't really argue with those who
don't feel comfortable with the idea--which is probably why this has taken so
long.

~~~
walshemj
Also could mean Marriott being black listed by any company working with CNI
and the civil service.

------
dreamcompiler
I like Marriott hotels in general. This just means I'm going to unplug the
device, remove its batteries, and wrap it in foil as soon as I check in.

[Note to self: Pack foil on next trip.]

~~~
kodablah
> I like Marriott hotels in general.

IMO, you should stop supporting Marriott if at all possible. Google "marriott
tibet tweet" and choose your outlet of choice (less about the specific firing
and more about censorship cowering sans transparent statement). I also like
Nestle candy in general, but try not to eat it.

~~~
wilsonnb2
If I'm understanding this correctly - an employee of Marriott liked a tweet
praising Marriott for listing Tibet as a country in a survey, so China tells
Marriott to apologize, hold the employee responsible, and suspends Marriott's
website and app in China (their second largest market, with over 300 hotels).

Marriott then fires the employee and releases a statement on twitter saying
"We don’t support separatist groups that subvert the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of China".

That hardly seems like a reason to stop supporting Marriott. What would you
have wanted them to do differently?

~~~
kodablah
> What would you have wanted them to do differently?

Not let a government set their principles on what they can and can't do on
Twitter. This is really simple. If they principally believe that they were
wrong to like that tweet, then I disagree with their principles. If they were
being pressured to react to it by a government, then I disagree with them
cowering to any government about a liked tweet. Either way, they did wrong and
they weren't very clear about what was requested by a country's government and
what wasn't.

No different than Apple being forced to put icloud servers in control of non-
Apple company in China...all you have to do is be transparent so I can
disagree with your principles, unless your principles are money only, at which
point I can disagree with that too. (and no, don't pretend like all of us with
companies only care about money)

So, to answer the question, they should have ignored the request and been
clear about what was asked of them. Since they didn't, they probably saved a
lot of money even if they lost mine.

------
VBprogrammer
I stayed at a hotel which had Amazon echo in the room a few weeks ago. It was
awesome to ask it to play various kinds of music while we lounged by the pool.
Or to check the weather forecast for the next day.

I enjoyed it enough that we bought an echo dot the day after we arrived home.

Personally I think you all need to lighten up. It would be 100x easier for
government, previous guests or the hotel to install hidden microphones or
video than to hack into the Echo. Amazon have sufficient commercial interests
that personally I'd be sure enough that they'll behave properly. I'm not
planning a military coop or anything though.

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mc32
So basically all Marriott hotels will be bugged for whatever host country they
are in. I can’t see conducting sent I’ve business in them. Now they don’t have
to bother doing targeted spying becuase now it’ll be everywhere.

------
untog
There's something a little sad about this. Unlike at home, hotels are a place
where you _already_ have a voice assistant - the concierge, that'll give you
restaurant recommendations, pick up your laundry and call a cab for you. And
do a much better job than any automated voice assistant will do. But I don't
doubt for a second that this will eventually be paired with a strong rollback
of real humans manning phone lines.

Sigh.

~~~
mseebach
There's already a very easy and commonly deployed way to save on a concierge:
don't have one.

------
jonknee
"Alexa, get my car" to alert the valet would be awesome.

~~~
reaperducer
Or you could pick up the phone in the room and push the one button for that
function.

I stayed in a hotel recently (Hilton, I think) where the valet function was
done via text message.

~~~
jonknee
Yes, voice assistants don't do anything that you can't accomplish by pressing
buttons or using your phone. That's not the point.

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Dirlewanger
"Alexa, remind me next vacation never to stay at Marriott hotels ever again."

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boardguy
Ah man, this is terrible. I go to hotels to get away from tech!

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Simulacra
Ok... That's one more thing I need to be sure I unplug or cover when I'm in
the room. Although all of this compounds the reasons I don't stay in hotel
rooms, and opt for Airbnb whenever possible. That, again, is another place for
concern, but at least I can get to the circuit breaker and flip it off to
disrupt things, and run a network sniffer to look for hidden cameras. Hell
hath no fury as a paranoid woman traveling alone.

~~~
jonknee
If you're that concerned about cameras you are much better staying in a
corporate owned hotel than an Airbnb. If you do ever find anything you will
actually be able to sue and cash in:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/business/media/erin-
andre...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/business/media/erin-andrews-
awarded-55-million-in-lawsuit-over-nude-video-at-hotel.html)

~~~
Simulacra
But in an Airbnb, not only can I sue, but someone will go to jail.
[https://nypost.com/2017/12/04/people-keep-finding-hidden-
cam...](https://nypost.com/2017/12/04/people-keep-finding-hidden-cameras-in-
their-airbnbs/)

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nautilus12
Amazon now collecting your personal conversations at Marriott hotels

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galkk
Me and my wife both agreed (on separate occasions) that "Alexa, turn the
living room/bedroom on" feel so missing at hotels.

disc: Amazon employee

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irishloop
I know it's of little solace to many, but the truth is, I mostly feel safe in
knowing that whoever is collecting data on me, I'm not really worth spying on.

~~~
ozim
The thing is you might be interesting just because of that. In case some bad
actors (government, gangsters, etc.) would need some scape goat they have much
more means to make you into one because by coincidence you might be close to
some unwanted activity.

People get convicted for things they did not do all the time by mistakes. Now
it can be a lot easier to get someone convicted by planting stuff on their
devices. So bad guys point you and how are you going to convince judge that
you are innocent, everyone is saying he is innocent.

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frobware
Alexa, upgrade my room.

