Abstract

Over the last few years, smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home have become increasingly present within British households. Yet, privacy remains a prominent concern in the public discourse about smart speakers, as well as in the nascent academic literature. We argue that privacy in the context of smart speakers is more complex than in other settings due to smart speakers’ specific technological affordances and also the axial relationships between users, the device, device manufacturers, application developers, and other third parties such as moderation contractors and data brokers. With survey data from Amazon Echo and Google Home users in the UK, we explore users’ privacy concerns and privacy protection behaviors related to smart speakers. We rely on a contextual understanding of privacy, assessing the prevalence of seven distinct privacy concern types as well as three privacy protection behaviors. The results indicate that concerns about third parties, such as contractors listening to smart speaker recordings, are most pronounced. Privacy protection behaviors are uncommon but partly affected by privacy concerns and motives such as social presence and utilitarian benefits. Taken together, our research paints a picture of privacy pragmatism or privacy cynicism among smart speaker users.

摘要

在过去的几年中，诸如亚马逊Echo和Google Home之类的智能扬声器在英国家庭中越来越多地出现。然而，隐私仍然是关于智能扬声器的公众讨论以及新生的学术文献中的主要关注点。我们认为，由于智能扬声器的特定技术能力以及用户，设备，设备制造商，应用程序开发人员和其他第三方（例如主持人）之间的轴向关系，智能扬声器上下文中的隐私比其他设置更为复杂。和数据经纪人。利用英国的Amazon Echo和Google Home用户的调查数据，我们探索了用户的隐私问题以及与智能扬声器相关的隐私保护行为。我们依靠对隐私的上下文理解，评估七种不同的隐私关注类型以及三种隐私保护行为的流行程度。结果表明，对第三方的关注最为明显，例如承包商在听智能扬声器录音。隐私保护行为并不常见，但部分受到隐私问题和动机（例如社交存在和功利）的影响。综上所述，我们的研究描绘了智能扬声器用户之间的隐私实用主义或隐私愤世嫉俗。