[spdustin]

Yes, that's definitely a more precise statement of the facts as we know them today. Please allow me to expand on it:

Amazon has told us that this product we paid to have in our homes won't spy on us, and has (to my knowledge) given me or anyone else ZERO indication that they'd suddenly decide: "Privacy? Fuck that! Let's see if someone is saying something salacious in that bedroom in Watertown, NY; that customer seems to be buying a lot of lube." Or, less sarcastically, violate their paying customers' expectation of privacy to suit their own ends, whatever those may be.

Google, however, has "snuck in" code to actively listen to the microphone in their browser, which we don't pay for. I won't use the old "if you're not the buyer, you're the product" routine here, but I will say that I trust the privacy protections of a free browser with portions of black-box, closed-source code a hell of a lot less than I trust the same protections of a paid-for product with portions of black-box, closed-source code.