No, they don't. Do you really think if, before she made this purchase, someone explained to her all the things that could theoratically go wrong with this device, she would have chosen not to buy it?
She only cares now and acts like she doesn't share quite a bit of the blame because it actually affected her. I think it is highly likely she'll just switch to an Apple or Google equivalent instead of noticing the larger problem with these devices.
I think this would only indicate that she might care, but thought theoretical worst case scenarios are not sufficient evidence for an actual, non-negligible risk to her privacy. If they had told her that exactly this would definitely happen, I think she would not have bought the device.
I think one problem of explaining privacy issues to non-techies is justifying why theoretical problems often pose a real threat without sounding (to them) like a conspiracy theory nutcase.
The loss of privacy spreading throughout civilization is recent and rapid. It's not surprising that somebody might think about it differently after they've experienced it. We haven't had time to come to terms with what out technology can do.
"Amazon/Google/Apple/Facebook/X have very smart people who will not allow this to happen."
"I have nothing to hide."
"People who want to listen to our boring conversations are losers. Let them waste their time doing so."
And the list goes on. I'm not making any of this up.
And then when it (occasionally) happens to them, there is a whole lot of dramatic outrage and someone else must be blamed. (Although in this case, I agree someone else is to blame - but I've seen this play out when people explicitly agree in the contract to consequences, and are warned quite clearly by a human about the implications of the contract).
Response: "Cool. What's your e-mail password?"
Yes. Do you think if everyone knew what was going to happen with the Facebook scandal before it happened they would have signed up for Facebook? That's why it's called a "scandal."
Yes.
I also noticed how they haven't left once the scandal came to light.
You and I must read different news sources.
From what I've read, Facebook is down over a billion visits in the last quarter.
I've visited less in the last month, but because they've changed the algo on my feed and it's not as interesting ... though that could be a network effect, but I'm getting quite different stuff.
Market failure does not imply government solution. You're going to need a much stronger argument than "companies aren't doing a good enough job."
Amazon invaded her privacy, she realized it, and now she doesn't use the product. If you want others to do the same, start raising awareness yourself instead of enacting nanny state laws with other people's money.
Case and point - 2008 Market Crash, everyone agrees the dishonest practices that led to the crash should have been made absolutely illegal (in the cases where they already weren't)
In this case, we have MANY significant and potentially extraordinarily damaging failures in the markets to effectively protect people's privacy occurring fairly regularly. GDPR is not the ideal solution my any metric, but that's a failure of government to create effective legislation - not a lack of need for effective rules.
Let this lady's reaction be a lesson to all of those who say "people don't care about privacy." She wired her home with Alexa devices, and yet when she found out how her privacy could practically be invaded through such devices, she seems like couldn't get rid of them fast enough.
People care deeply about their privacy. They just don't understand the true implications of even a device that's supposed to "listen to you" and the possibilities of what someone else could do to their internet-connected devices.
This is why governments must intervene with laws such as GDPR or even much stronger ones in the future to protect people's privacy, because the companies themselves have no incentive to "self-regulate" other than a negligible amount.
The only problem is some governments will not intervene unless enough people go through similar situations such as this lady. In the US even that may not help much because the vast majority of politicians care most about continuing to receive (however modest) donations (also called bribe money elsewhere) from the industry.