[whatshisface]

>has Amazon done anything wrong here?

There's the contract that was actually signed, which Amazon didn't break, and then there's the contract people think they signed. It's generally considered your fault when you sign a contract with the devil and get tricked, but the devil is still evil. In other words, Amazon is evil in this situation and their customers made a mistake. If it had been made clear to non-technical people that they would get listened to by the listening device, then it would all be on them. However, this comes as a surprise to the average person, because it doesn't take that much work to encourage a false belief in the mind of a non-expert.

[zachr]

Fundamentally for a voice assistant to assist you it needs to listen to you. I don't see how this could possibly be surprising to anyone.

[whatshisface]

The headline in this case is that humans are also involved in the listening, which is technically advantageous but not technically necessary. It is also worth mentioning that the recording gets uploaded out of your house, which is again technically advantageous but not technically necessary.