Not the GP: One of these advertises 'always listening'. The other one doesn't.

One is an established device to actually talk to (usually) one other person, of your choice. The other one records you to send the information ~elsewhere~.

One is - in theory, let's leave the three letter stuff out - protected by quite a lot of battle-tested laws. The other one is so much harder to judge.

Do you trust the advertising/documentation/claims?

If so, Echo advertises that it is listening for its wake word and doesn't transmit the audio until that is used. It sends the information to a service of your choice.

If not, why would you trust that the other device's microphone doesn't activate and send your audio remotely?

What laws protect you from your phone/tablet that don't apply to the Echo?

If I'd be a trusting person, I probably wouldn't have this exchange with you. I don't have social network accounts (except for a ~mostly~ readonly Twitter thing), I don't use Google Now etc.

Now, I admit that this just shows that I'm not part of the target market - just like the thread's author I assume. I don't claim that people are stupid if they buy into Echo, I just don't see why on Earth you would want to.

"why would you trust that the other device's microphone doesn't activate and send your audio remotely?"

As explained above: All voice activated features have an off button and I try to keep an eye on things/removing services/disable whatever I can. The distinction here is that one device works perfectly fine if you can convince yourself that it doesn't listen to you. The other one doesn't.

"What laws protect you from your phone/tablet that don't apply to the Echo?"

IANAL - but tapping your phone is something that the law is rather specific about and it is usually well protected. You can argue that the use of the phone's microphone outside of a call would be really not 'phone' related, but I'd hope (erm.. maybe I do have more trust than I'm aware of myself here?) that a court would find the invasion worse. Again: One is a device that is meant for private communication under your control. The other one is a microphone in your living room that is sold to stream your audio (yes, I understand the wake word concept) to random corporations.

And in the end it's a matter of limiting exposure. I _do_ think that the phone can be abused. It's just not practical to avoid one in my daily life. I take precautions and accept the risk. Without bashing Echo fans, I personally just wouldn't see the benefit and therefor cannot accept the risks.

Bottom line: Having a phone with a microphone and then buying another microphone for the living room isn't a case of 'Ah, all is lost anyway' for me. I don't think the comparison makes sense/leads anywhere.

I think the point is: why do you trust the "off" button for the features on your other devices but not trust the assurances of the Echo about what it is doing? The other devices could just as well lie about whether they are off.

I'm certainly not a lawyer, and I'm not sure which laws you're referring to, but I know that some laws relate to one's expectation of privacy which would certainly apply to an Echo in your bedroom just as well as your phone.

It's perfectly reasonable not to want an Echo because you don't value its features.

My point is that we may get the emotional 'creepy' factor from thinking about the Echo listening, but that rationally the risks and trust involved are not greater than those with, for example, a smartphone.

We agree that smart phones could spy on you.

We don't seem to agree about the comparison in general.

A smart phone

- offers a button to disable voice activated features

- remains useful without voice activation

- is arguably (job?) not optional

- is no reason to dismiss feeling uneasy about 100% unrelated, additional 3rd party controlled microphones

Yes, a smart phone can probably pull off any attack on my privacy that I can come up with for the Echo. But that's not relevant for my feelings about the Echo IMHO. I can dislike Android AND iOS. I can worry about smart phones AND express similar things about the Echo.

A lot of Moto devices actually are "always listening" -- they have a co-processor that just listens for the "OK, Google" hotword.

Both Android and iOS have always-listening modes: OK Google and Hey Siri.

I have no clue about iOS.

I've never seen 'OK Google' work (because everything Google Now, Google (Games|Music|Books), G+ etc. is terminated and/or disabled and/or removed). Don't claim that this is something you cannot (try to, if we're paranoid) avoid, some mandatory, intrinsic feature of the phone.

And, once again, how do you know you disabling all that actually turned listening off. It could easily still be listening and just not reacting to OK Google because that component was disabled. You have absolutely no guarantee that what you did works, and that your device is not spying on you, but you somehow have a massive problem with the Echo (which also has a "turn off microphone" button) spying on you.

Read the sibling threads.

I agree that I have no guarantee. That is not related. I don't have a massive problem with the Echo - I plain don't get the risk/reward situation and it's not for me.

The only problem I do have is people jumping from 'having a smart phone' to 'cannot seriously be worried about random other gadgets with microphones'. There's no connection. That logic is flawed.

None of those points are very compelling. Fact is, any pc or cell phone could be rigged to eavesdrop and it would behoove the providers to implement and prove that it's not possible.