
Amazon launches Halo: tracks activity, body fat, emotions - matco11
https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/introducing-amazon-halo-and-amazon-halo-band-new-service-helps/
======
aboringusername
> from the comfort and privacy of home

There is no privacy in home, and that's exactly what you want, to track our
every tap, thought and utterance when using Alexa or any of your spyware.

> Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud

I feel PR pieces like this have given up even trying, and they only add that
entire section reluctantly. I'd respect technologists more if they just openly
admitted that this data is tracked, collected, processed and used for ads or
other metrics and possibly collected by law enforcement or other purposes.

I mean, there was huge backlash against Ring cameras for working with the
police, so absolutely nobody can trust anything that even remotely connects to
the internet.

What they should say:

Truly private and encrypted: All data is stored locally, on device, and will
never be transmitted via the internet. Using a free, open source application,
you can transfer all the data to your own, secure offline storage. No data
will be transmitted to Amazon, the cloud, or any other third party. Not even
us can access your data.

But, as we know, that is never going to happen as far as Amazon is concerned,
they want to track every second of your life in billions of datapoints; how
often you blink, how many steps you take, your every interaction within the
world.

They won't be happy until as much of our lives is being recorded by them as
possible.

Fuck Amazon.

~~~
tiny_epoch
The only sane choice is to simply not use the technology that tracks us.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Have you ever tried not to use a smartphone?

I don't mean to be rude; I just don't think that "simply not use" is going to
work.

------
buildbot
In a hilarious naming clash, Halo is the name of a medical bracelet in the
SciFi show Continuum created by one of the main characters, who is the CEO of
a very Amazon like company. The bracelet uses ai to monitor, track, and treat
your health. Since the show is of course science fiction, the bracelet is
quickly misused. See the commercial for the device from the show:

[https://youtu.be/xfqaZ8_Z5aA](https://youtu.be/xfqaZ8_Z5aA)

~~~
glial
Perhaps not unintentional?

~~~
buildbot
IIRC the device is used to control people in the show, so that would be a
little bit dark for a namesake?

~~~
kyleee
Very dark for sure, but I can guess the folks making 6 and 7 figure salaries
developing this stuff and foisting it on a largely unknowing society probably
enjoy this type of humor

------
ethbro
FAQ on Tone component: [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-new-tool-to-
help-you-...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-new-tool-to-help-you-
understand-and-improve-your-social-wellbeing)

 _" Once you’ve opted-in by creating your voice profile, Tone will run
passively and intermittently in the background so you don’t have to think
about it. Throughout the day, it will take short samples of your speech and
analyze the acoustic characteristics that represent how you sound to the
people you interact with. This gives you a simple way to reflect on your
interaction and communication throughout the day."_

Aka "Look, Amazon found a reason it needs to record your voice all the time.
For science."

Facebook must be fuming.

~~~
hammock
Holy crap. They are openly saying they will now be recording and listening to
(and transcribing presumably) your speech at any time.

BTW, pretty sure Facebook and Google are already listening to speech and
serving ads off it, just not admitting to it.

~~~
terhechte
Where does it say transcribing? To me it sounds like it is processing voice on
device into emotion markers and only the emotion markers are send to amazon.
So the actual voice information would never leave the device. I do think
anything else would not be possible legally because you'd need to have consent
from every stranger you have a discussion with, moreso what about trade secret
meetings. I can't fathom Amazon would go that way.

~~~
hammock
It doesn't. However for the last nine or more years (since work on Echo
began), transcription has been far and away the #1 way Amazon processes speech
- not "emotion markers" or whatever else you are dreaming up. I don't see
"emotion markers" mentioned or described, and "it sounds like they are doing
something else" is not really a strong argument if you're trying to guarantee
that they _aren 't_ transcribing it.

------
slackfan
We see you're feeling down citizen, here's some targeted advertising so you
can spend your money with us citizen. It's for your good, citizen.

The question is, how much is Amazon paying me for my data? Oh, nothing? Yeah,
nope.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
I am trying to remember the name of that short movie where you talked to the
mirror and pills were dispensed.

I feel sad. Let Amazon make it all better(orders gin).

Frankly, I am horrified and I only began to process this information.

~~~
EForEndeavour
> I only began to process this information.

Might we interest you in augmenting your information-processing capacity with
one of our many EC2 instance types? There's one for every workload!

------
pizza
> _Tone: The globally accepted definition of health includes not just physical
> but also social and emotional well-being. The innovative Tone feature uses
> machine learning to analyze energy and positivity in a customer’s voice so
> they can better understand how they may sound to others, helping improve
> their communication and relationships. For example, Tone results may reveal
> that a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a
> customer’s family, an indication of the impact of stress on emotional well-
> being._

Reminds me of Radiohead's "fitter, happier, more productive self".

~Mindset tracking is pretty sensitive data, and to pay for the privilege to
give something so personal away feels less than optimal. I would feel better
about it I guess if there were a guarantee that no one would ever receive my
data, ever, after Amazon, but even then...

~~~
numpad0
A few giant elephants aside, I wonder how they train it at all and how it
works across cultures, as coincidentally I just saw someone tweeting that
multi-lingual person basically has independent thought processes and split
personalities for each languages, and someone else following up they notice
their facial expressions and gestures switch.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Assuming it becomes widely accepted, the cases will be fascinating. Domestic
abuse where voice data will be used to establish that individuals were lucid
and not emotional.

------
actuator
The fat measurement bit seems interesting. It seems entirely dependent on
CV.[1] It does acknowledge that people gain fat differently but I am very
apprehensive of this feature. Definition of muscles unless you go sub 10% BF
looks very different among people. Also, clicking full body pictures and
uploading it in a third party service even though this is Amazon feels very
violating for some reason.

I think traditional home/gym scales use electrical impedance to measure this
like this Inbody one. [2] They also claim to have been validated by studies. I
would rather want these devices to become more portable and affordable.

[1] [https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-
hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

[2]
[https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/](https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/)

~~~
parliament32
Electrical impedance has been shown to be absolutely trash in accurately
predicting bf%. I've used both Garmin's and Fitbit's smart scales, which are
supposed to be top-of-the-line, and compared to DXA... the numbers aren't even
close. Most people report similar experiences.

~~~
actuator
That's not something you can have at your home though, no? The DEXA/DXA scans
machine I know of are something you can't keep at the comfort of your home.

In my personal experience I have found impedance ones to be fairly
accurate(~10%, BF range 10-16) and for most people the accuracy of full body
ones is good to have a general idea about their body. Probably when you reach
sub 10 levels, accuracy matters more.

Btw, here is the link to studies they give:
[https://inbodyusa.com/studies/](https://inbodyusa.com/studies/)

~~~
parliament32
I've also found about a 10-point discrepancy. There's a huge difference
between 15% and 25% bf.. one is approaching athletic while the other is obese.

DXA is definitely less convenient, but there's no real reason to test your bf%
daily (just like weighing yourself daily isn't productive, you need to look at
average changes over time). Considering the amount of time it takes to
significantly change your bf%, twice a year testing would be plenty.. and
would probably cost you the same amount as this subscription service.

~~~
whatch
Maybe weighing daily IS productive, but looking at the result daily is not :)

------
simonebrunozzi
As usual for things like this one: on one side there will be great benefits
from tracking people's health using several metrics, something not possible
even just a few years ago.

On the other side, how these giant companies will handle our data, and how
this data will be used by, for example, health insurance companies, is the
sinister aspect of any innovation in this direction.

It's a good example of "free market" trending to dystopian societies with huge
disparities, whereas a good, simple, targeted government intervention (in
terms of regulation, etc) could go a long way.

~~~
rriepe
The downside in capitalism: Some company has your data if you are dumb enough
to buy the thing.

The downside in not-capitalism: You're forced to wear it. It doesn't work.
Your family is brought in for questioning when you try to take it off.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
The point is not capitalism vs communism: the point is how you interpret, how
you regulate capitalism.

~~~
rriepe
There were capitalism vs. communism _undertones_.

------
floatingatoll
I am no more willing to provide my biometric sleep, voice, and body data to
Amazon than I would to eBay or Netflix. However, if you'd like to help Amazon
train their human being analysis models and get no payment in return, this is
your chance.

What benefit does Amazon derive from having such comprehensive biometric data
about Amazon consumers? They're offering this device at a significant loss vs.
the investment that goes into it.

> _The innovative Tone feature uses machine learning to analyze energy and
> positivity in a customer’s voice_

Will they start charging people more for a product category when Alexa
overhears that they're talking about it _excitedly_? Will they 'invite' you to
install a Nielsen ratings integration that lets them listen for content and
measure how you feel about it? If your pulse rate jumps during a Clorox bleach
ad, will you start seeing ads for the Amazon Basics product that competes with
it?

> _Body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing,
> so only the customer sees them._

> _Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer’s phone and
> automatically deleted after processing_

"Processing" permits them to train models and transmit training outcomes that
are derived your body data, as they only commit to deleting the raw data, not
the training outcomes that result from it. They can claim correctly that the
raw data cannot be extracted _from_ the processed results.

------
algorithmsRcool
I wouldn't trust Amazon or any other tech giant with data about my emotions,
that information is more personal to me than the contents of my day to day
conversations or any other biometrics they might be scraping. What an
unimaginable panopticon we are entering into.

But in a dream world, I would love a device that could help me map out my
emotional state over time. My emotional health is a huge component to my well
being. I currently manually keep an offline journal of my mood daily and use
it to better understand myself, offloading that to a passive monitor would be
great.

~~~
dvaun
There may still be a way to reap benefits from this device without sharing any
data with Amazon.

If I were to use this, I would use an older phone that would:

1\. Only download the app necessary for using this device

2\. Only provide Bluetooth connectivity. I would not use a SIM or connect to
any wifi networks

~~~
pseudalopex
It requires a subscription. You can't keep it offline forever. Some features
send data to Amazon for processing.

------
secondbreakfast
Surprised (or maybe not?) by the negativity of the comments here. This is a
direct competitor to Whoop[1]. Athletes and friends of mine rave about it.

Knowing physical strain, recovery levels, etc. helps you know when to train
harder, when to take a day off, when to specifically rest up.

For somebody aiming for elite performance (physically and mentally), the data
is invaluable.

[1]: [https://www.whoop.com](https://www.whoop.com)

~~~
mandeepj
Whoop does not have body fat percentage measurement. And, the monthly price of
$30 is too high for me to get started with them.

~~~
dawnerd
They’re also not amazon, where a huge part of their business is data.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
I fear that people will actually use it. Once you ignore privacy implications
( and in US privacy is something companies pay lip service to and only weird
people like me worry about ), I can absolutely see the appeal to an
individual. Who would not want to track their progress?

And I am saying this having now been in several's people houses with Alexa
running lights. Not young people, or tech enthusiasts either. Old people who
should know better.

------
tempsy
Very creepy to know people are voluntarily going to purchase a device that
tracks your emotions and have that be used to inform Amazon's ad or product
recommendation targeting.

~~~
tsco77
Lol, these self monitor systems can't even produce useful data in regards to
heart arrhythmias, I would be surprised if they are any better at mood
recognition given how complex mood is by comparison to heart function.

~~~
tempsy
Are you talking about Apple Watch...?

Does it matter if the V1 is totally accurate or not? Safe to assume it will
get better over time. The point still stands.

------
kache_
I would love a device like this that I could load with my own software. Any
suggestions? Other than building one myself? P:

~~~
whatch
I believe you can achieve something similar with cheap tracker from xiaomi
(like mi band) connected via "Notify and Fitness for Mi Band" (I use paid PRO
version) or Gadgetbridge [0] (I didn't use it).

Gadgetbridge looks better in terms of privacy, but for some reason I'd chosen
Notify and Fitness for my mi band 4 and some xiaomi body scales. Probably
because it had more features than gadgetbridge.

[0]: [https://gadgetbridge.org/](https://gadgetbridge.org/)

~~~
vanous
What features are you missing in Gadgetbridge? The upcoming release brings
another round of goodies: events forwarding ( act on detected sleep, wake
up...) and sports activities ( swimming, yoga ;), but also running, walking,
biking...), including computer statistics for these. That besides many other
small and large under the hood improvements...

~~~
whatch
Unfortunately, I do not remember. I've bought my miband and set everything up
last fall.

I will definitely try Gadgedbrige again when there are less active covid cases
in my city so I can continue working out outside.

My main sport activites are free weight lifting and longboarding (long
distance, 10+ km, no trick like on skateboard).

In my current app I really like trend charts, especially weight trend (and
recommendations on how to lose more weight based on my activity). Do not
remember if they were present in Gadgetbridge when I last checked. But I don't
like that the app I use now is slow on my old android (looks like unoptimized
react native app).

~~~
vanous
We do not track weight (at this point), but do have charts (not trend charts)
but these are all good ideas, i will mark them. Still, give Gadgetbridge a
shot, you might like it. Check out our wiki, many things of the MiBand are
similar with the Bip:
[https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Amazfi...](https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Amazfit-
Bip) , which i think has most comprehensive article from the whole Huami
(MiBand/Amazfit) family.

------
axaxs
Amazon already more or less tracks these things, I think. About 3 years ago, I
needed new jeans, so ordered some on Amazon. They were a little tight, and
didn't loosen up, so I purchased the next size up (a couple months later). I
immediately started seeing belt extenders and pants waistline extenders as
suggested items. I assume their algorithm assumed I had gained weight. There
is a ton of things they can do with that information.

~~~
dawnerd
Goes back to that story of Targets algorithm figuring out a woman was pregnant
before she even knew.

I get it, it’s smart and maybe useful? But creepy as hell.

~~~
ourmandave
Actually that was Target knew a teen girl was pregnant before she'd told her
dad.

They mailed her a sales circular filled with baby related items based on she'd
already bought a bunch of expectant mom related products (e.g. vitamins, scent
free lotion).

But imagine the fun ads you'll get once they have your bio-data.

Here's a coupon for a discount on all your heart transplant meds!

"But I don't take... oh sh*t!"

~~~
dawnerd
Oh yeah that's right! Found the article:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targ...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

------
modeless
The body fat tracking is based on 4 smartphone selfies that you take, and
neural nets. Maybe they got good looking accuracy numbers on their in house
test set, but I am extremely skeptical that this will be at all accurate in
practice.

Also, they had a hardware device designed to take pictures of your body called
the "Echo Look" which they canceled not too long ago. Seems strange to
introduce new body scanning features soon after that failure.

------
imheretolearn
There was a post here on HN a few days ago about the loads of information that
the Kindle tracks. Then there's Alexa which is _supposed_ to "wake up" only
when the wake word is used which we all know isn't true. And now there's Halo.
Amazon wants to _own you_ in a way no other company has been able to just yet.

The most important question is, are you willing to trust amazon with all the
data? I sure af don't

------
hendersoon
Pity it doesn't include blood oxygen monitoring. That would be a hot seller
right now.

On a side note, the first smartwatch to include blood glucose monitoring is
going to make an incredible amount of money.

I'm aware there are largely dedicated glucose monitoring devices in the watch
form factor, but they aren't good smartwatches for other uses, super-thick,
lacking heartrate monitoring and phone notifications, etc.

------
pestkranker
I would like a comparison between this device and a DEXA scan regarding body
fat measurement. EX: What is the approximate error margin?

~~~
chrisdsaldivar
They don’t go into details; but they claim it’s “as accurate as methods a
doctor would use” and that they tested accuracy against DXA.

[https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-
hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

~~~
pestkranker
Interesting. I'll wait for some unbiased results before buying one, but it's
promising!

------
caiobegotti
It's really funny and scary at the same time how companies these day choose
(and convince most of us) privacy to only mean physical privacy, as if as long
you are indoors at your house then your privacy is preserved, nothing to worry
about. The more "ethereal" aspect of your privacy, on the other hand...

------
DIVx0
I want these sort of devices in my life but I don't want them connected to
some unknowable blackbox.

I remember growing up and reading all of these breathless futuristic magazine
articles, books or interviews that featured what technology might be like in
the future (the future is now). Those dreamed of devices do a lot of what
today's actual devices do. The difference is that the hypothetical devices
were built and sold to service the consumer and not act as a vehicle to gather
data for whatever unknown purposes the manufacture is really interested in.

I think about the movie "Her" where the AI is purchased and installed onto an
owned device and seemingly works only on behalf of the person that installed
it and not who built it. Until we get to that sort of mind set (if ever) i
will sadly have to opt-out of using these cool inventions.

------
freefrancisco
So it's the Oura ring plus body fat detection and analyzing your voice. Are
these two extra things worth paying a monthly subscription? I will probably
get it anyway, at least for the first six months, just to play with it and see
how much extra value it gives me on top of the Oura.

------
kthejoker2
One more stone's throw in a very long game ...

To acclimate passive surveillance in service of omnichannel sales and
marketing.

To quantify and analyze everything.

The only countermeasure is to create tools to directly thwart these efforts,
and provide self-contained systems to allow users to reap the benefits of
these technologies (monitoring one's own health is certainly an objective
good) while preventing those would profit on it from doing so.

I'm envisioning an application set to an encrypted algorithm who injects
enough noise into this system, imperceptibly different from human behavior,
that by private key the user is able to (privately, securely, and offline)
remove the noise for their own analysis.

------
parliament32
I find the body fat measurement tech interesting:
[https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-
hea...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health)

Basically you take some pictures of yourself and they build a 3D model, then
use a neural network to analyze and predict bf%.

They claim "is as accurate as methods a doctor would use" and "we tested
accuracy using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA)" but they're not saying
exactly how accurate it is compared to DXA, so I suspect the number isn't
great.

------
khalilravanna
Any word on if it's possible to use it for the sleep function only and have
that data not sent to the cloud? Sounds like wishful thinking. For $65, a
device that can collect good sleep data _and_ has a temperature monitor seems
really nice. The closest thing I've found is the Oura ring which you're lucky
if you can get a used one for $200.

Perhaps we'll have to wait for Apple to announce their (hopefully) inevitable
"health app" offering. I'm hopeful that they'll be smart about making
something privacy-centric.

------
finkin1
Interesting that this device requires a monthly subscription fee. I'm very
curious to see what level of success this achieves. Being able to track body
fat percentage more accurately than smart scales seems like an amazing
feature. Does any other wearable do this? My guess is the monthly subscription
will be a massive barrier for most people, but kudos to Amazon for trying
something different.

------
wojciii
I didn't buy any of the competitor's products .. and I'm not going to buy
this.

While I buy stuff from Amazon I don't want them inside my house.

------
Copyrighted
"Privacy is foundational to Amazon Halo, and multiple layers of privacy and
security are built into the service to keep data safe and in customers’
control. Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud, and customers
can download or delete their data at any time directly from the app. Body scan
images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing, so only the
customer sees them. Tone is enabled by creating a personal voice profile,
after which it begins capturing short samples of speech and providing insights
and daily recaps. Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer’s
phone and automatically deleted after processing—nobody, not even the
customer, ever hears them. Learn more about Amazon Halo privacy features."

Playing devils advocate, but it doesn't sound like they retain any data unless
you opt into a third party program. Also the emotional part sounds really
creepy.

"For example, Tone results may reveal that a difficult work call leads to less
positivity in communication with a customer’s family, an indication of the
impact of stress on emotional well-being."

Yeah, no thanks. I don't need a machine to help me regulate my emotions.
Coming to a dystopian future near you, a call center using Tone. "It appears
you didn't sound positive enough in your last call! Please try harder or you
will get written up."

I'm surprised they called it Halo. First thing I thought of was the video game
from Bungie.

~~~
hammock
Couple things, since surveillance organizations like tech companies and
government intelligence bureaus have been known for weasel words:

>Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer’s phone

OK, and are they ONLY analyzed there? Are they also uploaded anywhere? Are
they also analyzed anywhere else?

>automatically deleted after processing

Deleted from where? The local storage? See above, what if it's also uploaded
somewhere else?

>nobody, not even the customer, ever hears them.

No human? Are transcriptions created that could be reviewed by a human?

~~~
Copyrighted
I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't trust Amazon. I think the questions you
mentioned above are what people should be asking.

I just interpreted what I read on the site.

------
freefrancisco
One thing I would like to know though, is if I pay for this, do I get access
to the raw data to download and analyze myself? That's one of the things I
really like about the Oura, I can download the data into a python notebook and
do all sorts of analysis on it. It would be cool to combine both data streams
and see what insight I can get from it.

------
technofiend
What's the over/under on how long before this yields a discount in Amazon's
joint healthcare venture? One year? Two years? I figure it's only a matter of
time. Employers can't make this mandatory without losing some face, but they
can effectively make it mandatory by tying it to a few hundred dollar a month
discount.

~~~
dakna
Getting discounts for habits that reduce healthcare costs is not unusual, gym
membership or health coaching sessions are already incentivized and you get
some money reimbursed. These are one-size-fits-all, the amount of discount is
not personalized.

I'm not an insurance expert, but I think services like this, that generate
personal data over time, pose the risk of calculating the individual insurance
risk much better if the insurance underwriter can evaluate this data on an
ongoing basis. It has the potential to skew the risk distribution for all
other insurance members in the pool including premium adjustments for people
who are not handing over their data.

------
Shivetya
Okay, I like the direction they went with their device. As in, health tracking
devices that feed another device to me are far more interesting that devices
with screens and other functionality that always seems to eat battery.

Privacy of course is a concern but they seem to have addressed this but the
test will be of course how it really plays out over time.

------
LegitShady
Requires monthly fee

Amazon level of privacy (expect none)

Requires pictures of you to provide body readings

This may be good for some buy this is a serious no go for me.

------
jonahbenton
Cue promos with smiling Amazon warehouse workers attesting to Halo's success
and helpfulness.

On deeper inspection one of them is determined to have a near undetectable
facial tic that could be seen to signal SOS in Morse code. She fails to appear
in later promos.

The dystopia deepens.

------
elchief
I like the thermometer idea, might help w COVID monitoring, no blood oxygen
sensor though...

My Fitbit heart rate monitor is pretty inaccurate, compared to my treadmill's
chest monitor. Fitbit's walking calorie estimates are off by +1.5x. Maybe Halo
is better

------
renewiltord
Was really hoping to get periodic pulse oximetry on this. Otherwise, only the
Tone feature seems interesting. I think I’ll pass on this. Monthly
subscription doesn’t seem worth it for that.

------
hereme888
I don't know what the privacy and anti-Amazon sentiment in these commens is
all about. I'm not a fan of Amazon for privacy, but has anyone even checked
out their prviacy policy for Halo?

They literally have a cartoon video explaining privacy, such as how you can
turn off the microphones, how all health data is anonimized, etc.

Making a cartoon video explaining privacy policy is genius (so long as its not
deceitful, which I doubt it is).

Would others agree that anonimizing health data is potentially super useful
for society? I also know that Amazon is one of the premier security
infrastructure providers, so the data would probably be quite safe, yes?

------
mandeepj
With their 3d modeling feature, they can kill ShapeScale before its launch.

[https://shapescale.com/](https://shapescale.com/)

------
schoolornot
The monthly fee pisses me off. The only apparent differentiator on launch day
is mood analysis and fancy BMI which I get from a WiFi scale. Not worth $4/mo.

~~~
finkin1
To me the main differentiator is the body fat percentage measurement that
claims to be more accurate than smart scales.

------
mdoms
Why.... Why would you give this information to Amazon?

------
mzkply
Just the body fat calculation using the app is a great standalone feature.

------
adoxyz
If it does everything it claims to do with a very acceptable degree of
accuracy (not expecting 100%), I wouldn't mind something like this, even with
the monthly fee.

As far as privacy, I'm more trusting of Amazon than a small startup
personally.

~~~
leftbrain
They did already lie to congress about using sales data to screw other brands
and favor their own ones. And they will use your data how ever they can, legal
or illegal, for whatever they feel like gives them the edge over someone else.
So how does their size quarantines honesty? Quite the opposite apparently.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Most small startups I've encountered don't even have the _principle_ of
privacy; they happily vacuum up any data that's technologically feasible for
them to collect in the name of helping them make data-driven decisions.

------
hammock
@dang this really got flagged off the first page, huh? :/

------
awinter-py
crossing fingers that when amzn rolls out their social credit product,
activity, body fat + emotions are the main inputs

------
pnathan
I pay Amazon for them to take a deep analysis of my entire existence?

How about _no_.

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jacques_chester
I feel like choosing a name so close to "hell no" was a slight marketing
failure.

