Surveillance capitalism.

[DBT]

Surveillance capitalism appears to be getting out of hand:

“Most Americans realize that there are two groups of people who are monitored regularly as they move about the country. The first group is monitored involuntarily by a court order requiring that a tracking device be attached to their ankle. The second group includes everyone else…”

''Google surpassed Apple as the world’s most highly valued company in January for the first time since 2010. (Back then each company was worth less than 200 billion. Now each is valued at well over 500 billion.) While Google’s new lead lasted only a few days, the company’s success has implications for everyone who lives within the reach of the Internet. Why? Because Google is ground zero for a wholly new subspecies of capitalism in which profits derive from the unilateral surveillance and modification of human behavior. This is a new surveillance capitalism that is unimaginable outside the inscrutable high velocity circuits of Google’s digital universe, whose signature feature is the Internet and its successors. While the world is riveted by the showdown between Apple and the FBI, the real truth is that the surveillance capabilities being developed by surveillance capitalists are the envy of every state security agency. What are the secrets of this new capitalism, how do they produce such staggering wealth, and how can we protect ourselves from its invasive power?''

 

[barbos]

What are the secrets of this new capitalism, how do they produce such staggering wealth, and how can we protect ourselves from its invasive power?''

It's easy, google revenue is about $100bil a year. Assuming 1bil of people market (google is banned in China and I doubt India is a significant part of their revenue). You get 25 cents per day per person, that's how much they tax people with their search engine. Americans pay more for prison system than they pay for google services. The reason why google appears so "wealthy" is because they have insane margins and they have insane margins because they are effectively a monopoly.

Google is a rounding error on how much americans pay for health insurance.

 

[RVonse]

The OP is correct about being watched. But not correct to be worried about Google. It is the NSA that should make you fearful. Because it is the NSA that is not only collecting what Google and Facebook collects, but a hell of a lot more than that besides.

A targeted ad means nothing at all. It is the data they have collected that you know nothing about that should keep everyone awake at night.

 

[TSwizzle]

It’s a long essay but well worth reading. I thought I read something about Google collecting medical information too. In the USA where health care costs are covered by insurance companies this should be a major concern. It’s one thing to hand over your browsing and viewing habits but something else entirely to have these people collecting and selling your medical data. I’m not sure how they would collect that though.

 

[J842P]

It’s a long essay but well worth reading. I thought I read something about Google collecting medical information too. In the USA where health care costs are covered by insurance companies this should be a major concern. It’s one thing to hand over your browsing and viewing habits but something else entirely to have these people collecting and selling your medical data. I’m not sure how they would collect that though.

Probably through working with healthcare providers/payers as a business associate. In which case, they can see your shit.

 

[barbos]

The OP is correct about being watched. But not correct to be worried about Google. It is the NSA that should make you fearful. Because it is the NSA that is not only collecting what Google and Facebook collects, but a hell of a lot more than that besides.

A targeted ad means nothing at all. It is the data they have collected that you know nothing about that should keep everyone awake at night.

Speaking of facebook and Surveillance, I have a better question regarding recent "WhatsApp" scandal. Private cyber firm in Israel found a way to hack every single phone through WhatsApp and have been selling their services for quite a while without any kind of reaction from anybody, what's up with than? (pun intended)

 

[DBT]

There are long term aims, it seems;

''The game is no longer about sending you a mail order catalogue or even about targeting online advertising. The game is selling access to the real-time flow of your daily life – your reality – in order directly to influence and modify your behaviour for profit.

This is the gateway to a new universe of monetisation opportunities: restaurants who want to be your destination; service vendors who want to fix your brake pads; shops who will lure you like the fabled Sirens. The “various people” are anyone, and everyone, who wants a piece of your behaviour for profit. Small wonder, then, that Google Maps no longer merely provides the best route to wherever it is that you’re going; it “uses Google’s knowledge of your habits and search history to predict where you're going” – in other words, it offers you your destination.''

Changing people’s behaviour at scale

''This is just one peephole, in one corner, of one industry – and the peepholes are multiplying like cockroaches. Among the many interviews I’ve conducted over the past eight years, the Chief Data Scientist of a much-admired Silicon Valley company that develops applications to improve students’ learning told me:

The goal of everything we do is to change people’s actual behavior at scale. When people use our app, we can capture their behaviors, identify good and bad behaviors, and develop ways to reward the good and punish the bad. We can test how actionable our cues are for them and how profitable for us.''

 

[DBT]

More:

''I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. These data are then computed and packaged as prediction products and sold into behavioral futures markets — business customers with a commercial interest in knowing what we will do now, soon, and later. It was Google that first learned how to capture surplus behavioral data, more than what they needed for services, and used it to compute prediction products that they could sell to their business customers, in this case advertisers. But I argue that surveillance capitalism is no more restricted to that initial context than, for example, mass production was restricted to the fabrication of Model T’s.

Right from the start at Google it was understood that users were unlikely to agree to this unilateral claiming of their experience and its translation into behavioral data. It was understood that these methods had to be undetectable. So from the start the logic reflected the social relations of the one-way mirror. They were able to see and to take — and to do this in a way that we could not contest because we had no way to know what was happening.''

 

[TSwizzle]

I don't doubt these "smart home" devices, Echo and Google Nest are listening in. Goodness knows what your car is collecting via maps. Ugh.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

What do you all think about the idea of some sort of property right over personal data? And if for it, how would you want to see that work? If these companies make money off of your data should that somehow entitle you to something? If so, what and how?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

''I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.

Aka, "marketing."

 

[DBT]

''I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.

Aka, "marketing."

Be it intended or not, gathering of what should be confidential infornation appears to go beyond marketing.

 

[Axulus]

What do you all think about the idea of some sort of property right over personal data? And if for it, how would you want to see that work? If these companies make money off of your data should that somehow entitle you to something? If so, what and how?

And if one agrees to give these companies their data in exchange for using the service for free? Pretty much what is already happening anyway. Should people be allowed to consent to this use and selling of data in exchange for the benefit of using the service for free?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

''I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.

Aka, "marketing."

Be it intended or not, gathering of what should be confidential infornation appears to go beyond marketing.

First of all, what do you mean by "should be"? Let's say I manage a hardware store and I see you come in nearly every week to buy various gardening tools. Is that "confidential information"? It's my store. You're in it. You're buying my inventory from me. I then use that knowledge of your buying habits to offer you discounts on various gardening and gardening related items. Have I irreparably harmed you in some manner?

The key element in that quote you provided is "private human experience," except that, going online or into a store is NOT private; it is the exact opposite of private in fact. So right out of the gate, the underlying premise is fatally flawed, unless the author is referring to things like your phone's microphone always being on or the Alexa always "listening" or the like, in which case, I agree. Don't buy a fucking Alexa. Put your phone in some sort of soundproof bag. I'm sure someone makes them.

Here, ten seconds of ironic googling and: https://www.cnet.com/pictures/silent-pocket-faraday-phone-cases/

If you don't read the TOS and agree to the TOS regardless, however, because you want to be able to walk into a room and say, "Lights on" then you've fucked yourself. Same as it's always been. There's even a latin term for it: caveat emptor. It's practically as old as human civilization.

Second, what is the fear? That a bad actor will manipulate the data gathered in order to frame you for a crime you did not commit.

That's it. That is the sole driving boogeyman behind all of this libertarian nonsense. And, of course, it's self defeating, because a bad actor is going to just make up shit about you if need be in order to frame you for a crime you did not commit. Look at our fearless Fuhrer. He's gone to impeachable lengths to try to force the president of a foreign nation to commit international fraud in regard to a conspiracy that never existed. Did the fact that Trump knew it didn't exist stop him? Quite the opposite in fact. The whole point was to threaten Zelensky into making the shit up.

Look at Hillary Clinton. She says one thing and the Republicans change what she said into something the exact opposite in order to use it against her. She called black kids super predators. No she did not. She said marriage is only between a man and woman. Incorrect. She said all Trump supporters are deplorable. Wrong again. She voted for war in Iraq. Nope.

ALL of those things are false or otherwise deliberately misleading and ALL of them can easily be debunked by simply going to the primary sources of data. Does anyone do that, including those on Hillary's side in far too many cases? No. Because we're lazy fucks for the most part.

The point being, of course, is that we live in a state--and have always lived in a state--where any bad actor intent on framing you can be successful regardless of what the actual data says or proves AND, ironically, it is the existence and perseverance of the actual data that sets us free in those cases.

So, if you're talking about how temporarily annoying it is to occasionally look at your spam filter, then white people problems to you sir. If you're talking about a 1984-China-like surveillance state as a means of social control, well, then you're not talking about "surveillance capitalism."

But we have always lived in a police state in this country, ever since the first police forces were formed. We, the people, grant the State the authority to engage and train certain individuals to surveill us at all times in order to keep us safe from bad actors. That is exactly what is happening every single time you see a cop car. That car is an active surveillance unit always looking for any hint of a crime being committed. Ideally.

That there are bad actors within the police is no great shock and why we forced the police to create a police force policing the police and why we have checks and balances on every fucking thing we can put checks and balances on and why the bad actors--aka, "Republicans"--are always trying to remove those checks and balances because the real argument--or rather, real drive--behind this nonsense is that bad actors want to be free of prying eyes in order to do bad things.

That's the long and the short of it, but that bit is always hidden just underneath it all and even from the ones who stand on principle. It's really that you (the general proponent of the idea) want to do whatever you want to do--including illegal acts--because there are certain things that we do that may be illegal but that we don't personally agree should be illegal.

Smoking pot, for an excellent example. Back in the day, having Alexa call the cops if it heard me smoking a bong in the privacy of my own home would have been horrific and I would have stomped up and down yelling about my rights to privacy, but the fact is that if a cop had walked down my hallway and smelled the pot or walked past my apartment and saw me blowing a bowl, he could have busted down my door samey samey.

So that's the argument behind a benefficient desire to stop such intrusion, but the REAL drive behind the drivers are the bad actors that horse whisper the gray hats. And why not? It's the black hats on the other side that want the China-like social control.

For the average pleeb, however, it's much ado about nothing. Nobody gives a shit about you or what you do so long as you don't threaten someone important. Old as dirt and not something that is going to change by forcing Zuckerberg to change his algorithm, unfortunately. That would be the easy fix.

 

[DBT]

Be it intended or not, gathering of what should be confidential infornation appears to go beyond marketing.

First of all, what do you mean by "should be"? Let's say I manage a hardware store and I see you come in nearly every week to buy various gardening tools. Is that "confidential information"? It's my store. You're in it. You're buying my inventory from me. I then use that knowledge of your buying habits to offer you discounts on various gardening and gardening related items. Have I irreparably harmed you in some manner?

Store owners do not systematically gather information about you from different sources. Any particular store operator knowing what brand of soap or granola you prefer is not the same as having comprehensive information about you as person, daily habits, health, etc, information that should be private and confidential, yet available to anyone with the means to access it. Obviously it is the latter that is of concern.

For the average pleeb, however, it's much ado about nothing. Nobody gives a shit about you or what you do so long as you don't threaten someone important. Old as dirt and not something that is going to change by forcing Zuckerberg to change his algorithm, unfortunately. That would be the easy fix.

But there are concerns about comprehensive information gathering, aka, surveillance, how that information is used and by whom. The concerns are being raised and expressed in the articles that I posted.

And you mentioned China's social rating system, which is an example of where comprehensive surveillance can lead. It may appear to be be beneficial for society to keep citizens behaving in a civilized manner, but the downside is social control according to the ideology of a totalitarian government according to their ideology rather than social good, and those that do not toe the line find that they cannot find employment or even buy a bus ticket because their social credit is too low.

Quote;
''Being a “good citizen” is well rewarded. In some regions, citizens with high social credit scores can enjoy free gym facilities, cheaper public transport and shorter wait times in hospitals. Those with low scores, on the other hand, may have their travel and access to public services restricted.

Naming and shaming of blacklisted citizens

Publishing the details of blacklisted citizens online is a common practice, but some cities choose to take public shaming to another level.

Several provinces have been using TV and LED screens in public spaces to expose people. In some regions authorities have remotely personalised the dial tones of blacklisted debtors so that callers will hear a message akin to “the person you are calling is a dishonest debtor”

While many people are planning trips to their home towns to attend family reunions, authorities have blacklisted millions more Chinese citizens, labelled as “not qualified” to book flights or high-speed train tickets.

This citizen ranking and blacklisting mechanism is a pilot scheme of China’s Social Credit System. With a mission to “raise the awareness of integrity and the level of trustworthiness of Chinese society”, the Chinese government is planning to launch the system nationwide by 2020 to rate the trustworthiness of its 1.4 billion citizens.


So what does “credit” mean in the Social Credit System?

Actions that can now harm one’s personal credit record include not showing up to a restaurant without having cancelled the reservation, cheating in online games, leaving false product reviews, and jaywalking.

Ninan Transport Police demonstrates how facial recognition is used to identify pedestrians jaywalking. Nanjin Transport Police's public Weibo post

China's dystopian social credit system is a harbinger of the global age of the algorithm


One shared focus of the country’s existing pilot schemes is to generate a standardised reward and punishment system based on a citizen’s credit score.
A Chinese citizen showing her ‘trustworthy card’ Henan Broadcasting's public Weibo post

Being a “good citizen” is well rewarded. In some regions, citizens with high social credit scores can enjoy free gym facilities, cheaper public transport and shorter wait times in hospitals. Those with low scores, on the other hand, may have their travel and access to public services restricted.

At this stage, scores are connected to a citizen’s identification card number. But the Chinese internet court has proposed an online identification system connected to social media accounts.

Liu Hu, a vocal journalist who has criticized government officials on social media, was accused of “spreading rumour and defamation”. While seeking legal redress in early 2017, he realized he was blacklisted as “untrustworthy” and prohibited from buying plane tickets.''

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Store owners do not systematically gather information about you from different sources.

Of course they do! That's what marketing is, after all; information about you. In simpler times, store owners would simply talk about their customers with each other and that's how they could gather more information about you, but the simplest way is to just look at you every time you shop or read any of the marketing materials provided by just about every single product in their store every time they buy inventory, etc.

Any particular store operator knowing what brand of soap or granola you prefer is not the same as having comprehensive information about you as person, daily habits, health, etc,

Horseshit. Just by looking at you, I can assess your clothes and what they say about you (i.e, are you rich or poor or middle class; do you have any particular style and what that may say about you; etc); your relative health (i.e., are you fat and slovenly or athletic and well groomed); the way you carry yourself can tell me about your state of mind; the items you look at, but don't buy as opposed to the items you do buy; how long you linger in front of that one display and how you pass right buy that other one; etc. Just by watching you walk around the store one time an astute store owner (or marketer) can profile you and your likely spending habits in about fifteen to twenty seconds and know instantly what would interest you and what would not.

information that should be private and confidential

Again, what does that mean? If you are in the public square (whether it's analogue or digital), then nothing about you--except your thoughts, and even those are generally available to assess in a variety of different ways--is either private or confidential.

By just stopping you on your way and with only two questions, I can determine your intelligence; mood; relative health; immediate concerns; education; whether you're easily manipulated or closely guarded; etc., etc., etc. Any halfway attentive student of human nature can do likewise. We are, after all, social creatures. We are literally geared toward figuring out each other nearly instantaneously, so that we can determine the first time we meet whether or not your friend or foe.

But there are concerns about comprehensive information gathering, aka, surveillance

Except that it's NOT "aka." You are conflating two radically different concepts. "Information gathering" is a function of surveillance, of course, but Surveillance (capital "S")--as in the police or government investigative agency--is about targeting a particular individual for the purposes of seeing whether or not they are breaking a law. It's very specific kinds of information and with a radically different intent.

And you mentioned China's social rating system, which is an example of where comprehensive surveillance can lead.

Agreed, now that we understand that there shall be no false equivalence between gathering consumer-oriented trivialities for the purposes of giving you better discounts on the toilet paper you always buy and whether or not you're a mass murderer or pedophile.

It may appear to be be beneficial for society to keep citizens behaving in a civilized manner

In general, history has proven that to be true.

but the downside is social control according to the ideology of a totalitarian government according to their ideology rather than social good, and those that do not toe the line find that they cannot find employment or even buy a bus ticket because their social credit is too low.

Yeah, that's bad, as I already pointed out. But, again, not the same thing. particularly for a communist society working its way into the mutually exclusive communist-capitalism they're mired in.

So what does “credit” mean in the Social Credit System?

Actions that can now harm one’s personal credit record include not showing up to a restaurant without having cancelled the reservation, cheating in online games, leaving false product reviews, and jaywalking.

Ninan Transport Police demonstrates how facial recognition is used to identify pedestrians jaywalking. Nanjin Transport Police's public Weibo post

China's dystopian social credit system is a harbinger of the global age of the algorithm

No, the "harbinger" is the fact that China's government is dystopic at its core. Dystopias are already dystopias and behave in dystopic ways. The technology isn't instilling anything that wasn't already instilled.

 

[DBT]

Of course they do! That's what marketing is, after all; information about you. In simpler times, store owners would simply talk about their customers with each other and that's how they could gather more information about you, but the simplest way is to just look at you every time you shop or read any of the marketing materials provided by just about every single product in their store every time they buy inventory, etc.

Oh, come on, are you saying that the hardware store owner is in cahoots with the baker, grocery store, the news agent, etc, in gathering information on your purchases and spending habits? If so, Crock.

Horseshit. Just by looking at you, I can assess your clothes and what they say about you (i.e, are you rich or poor or middle class; do you have any particular style and what that may say about you; etc); your relative health (i.e., are you fat and slovenly or athletic and well groomed); the way you carry yourself can tell me about your state of mind; the items you look at, but don't buy as opposed to the items you do buy; how long you linger in front of that one display and how you pass right buy that other one; etc. Just by watching you walk around the store one time an astute store owner (or marketer) can profile you and your likely spending habits in about fifteen to twenty seconds and know instantly what would interest you and what would not.

Not even in the ballpark. A rich person may dress down, a poor person may want to present an image. What you think you know may be false. You are judging a book by its cover.

Again, what does that mean? If you are in the public square (whether it's analogue or digital), then nothing about you--except your thoughts, and even those are generally available to assess in a variety of different ways--is either private or confidential.

The issues with central data bases and collection of information about individuals in terms of ethics and exploitation has already been defined and listed in this thread.

Again;

Quote:

''I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. These data are then computed and packaged as prediction products and sold into behavioral futures markets — business customers with a commercial interest in knowing what we will do now, soon, and later. It was Google that first learned how to capture surplus behavioral data, more than what they needed for services, and used it to compute prediction products that they could sell to their business customers, in this case advertisers. But I argue that surveillance capitalism is no more restricted to that initial context than, for example, mass production was restricted to the fabrication of Model T’s.

Right from the start at Google it was understood that users were unlikely to agree to this unilateral claiming of their experience and its translation into behavioral data. It was understood that these methods had to be undetectable. So from the start the logic reflected the social relations of the one-way mirror. They were able to see and to take — and to do this in a way that we could not contest because we had no way to know what was happening.''


Big tech’s spy machines

Current news is rife with examples of data abuses. In April, NBC News broke a story detailing how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had used data gathered by the platform to support his friends and defeat his rivals.

This is not Facebook’s first privacy PR nightmare. In 2018, data firm Cambridge Analytica used a Facebook app to collect data profiles of over 87 million people, which was later used to distribute targeted political advertising during elections.''

In December, The New York Times published an exposé on what one can learn about someone using their collated data from apps and smartphones. By blending location tracking with other online behavior, researchers were able to put together a detailed portrait of the most intimate details of users’ lives, such as where their children go to school or who was cheating on their diet. They could even tell which area of a nuclear power plant an individual worked in – information that is typically classified.

Because of these revelations, data that big tech collects poses a national security problem. One open source researcher used data from Strava, a fitness app, to map U.S. military bases around the world as soldiers tracked their runs. Our devices are constantly telling companies where we are and what we are doing. That is not always a good thing.''

''Companies like the leading surveillance capitalists, Facebook and Google, have more information on citizens than our governments do. They can use this comprehensive knowledge to actually feed back right to that same interface from which the data is collected. Now the same digital architecture used for monitoring becomes the means of behaviour modification with programmed triggers, subliminal cues, rewards, punishments, social comparison dynamics – all of it aimed at tuning and herding human behaviour in the direction that aligns with the commercial goals of business customers.''


If you can't see the downside or the problems associated with this level of surveillance, there is nothing that can be said to convince you.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Oh, come on, are you saying that the hardware store owner is in cahoots

"In cahoots"? No, I definitely didn't say that. What I did say was that, back in the day, store owners paid attention to their customers' shopping habits--particularly if any of their customers were going to a competitor--and they also would talk to each other about their customers' shopping habits, particularly in small towns. Why? Why do you think and where do you think the whole concept of marketing came from in the first place?

Not even in the ballpark. A rich person may dress down, a poor person may want to present an image. What you think you know may be false. You are judging a book by its cover.

No shit. And maybe 8 out of 10 times, marketer's will be wrong about that judgement. Which would mean that 20% of the time, they are not. Which would mean an increase in sales of 20%. Which is HUGE for any company to increase their return by 20% annually. Which is why companies spend billions of dollars on marketing and advertising.

The issues with central data bases and collection of information about individuals in terms of ethics and exploitation has already been defined and listed in this thread.

I know. And they are wrong, as I've pointed out. The key fallacy, once again, is this:

I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.

Marketers don't collect anything "private." If you're on the internet, that is NOT you being "private." If you're in the public square, you are not being "private." That can't ever change. It's a fundamental defining quality of being in a public space.

The problem is, of course, that people think everything they do online is private because they're in their homes not understanding how the internet is a digital public space. That ignorance, however, is on them.

It was Google that first learned how to capture surplus behavioral data

Google is NOT a marketer. They are a service provider who uses the data they have collected in order to provide target marketing demographic tools to companies. The author concedes this and then asserts:

But I argue that surveillance capitalism is no more restricted to that initial context than, for example, mass production was restricted to the fabrication of Model T’s.

Iow, he is moving outside of the realm of original or primary use and arguing that the process is being co-opted by others and for other purposes, which we already knew in light of the 2016 election in particular. But that's like blaming nuclear weapons on the Chinese for coming up with fireworks.

Current news is rife with examples of data abuses.

Yep. Key word being "abuses."

If you can't see the downside

I can see the downside to every fuckng thing on the goddamned planet. That's not the point. The point is that you're conflating two completely different concepts in the word "surveillance" and not understanding that the "evil" of a multivariate process is predicated on its user's intent.

 

[DBT]

"In cahoots"? No, I definitely didn't say that. What I did say was that, back in the day, store owners paid attention to their customers' shopping habits--

Your wording was - ''In simpler times, store owners would simply talk about their customers with each other and that's how they could gather more information about you'' - which suggests that they are conferring, that they are 'cahoots' on the matter of gathering information about their customers.

I grew up in 'simpler times.' I have no such recollection. The people running the grocery store most likely did not associate with the sports store owner or the book seller....and none of them particularly cared what you bought, or tried to sell sell you anything. You were simply a regular customer. I doubt that the busy check out operators even took notice of our grocery items.

No shit. And maybe 8 out of 10 times, marketer's will be wrong about that judgement. Which would mean that 20% of the time, they are not. Which would mean an increase in sales of 20%. Which is HUGE for any company to increase their return by 20% annually. Which is why companies spend billions of dollars on marketing and advertising.

Nope, there is a vast difference between someones subjective guess work, which may be fairly accurate in a broad and casual sense, and systematic hard evidence gathering of your personal information, your habits and preferences, building a profile of you and making that information available to who knows who, medical condition, psychological profiling, habits, proclivities, etc.

There is no comparison between 'simpler times' and the situation in this day and age.

And as I have already provided descriptions of the risks and pitfalls of such a level of information gathering/surveillance, I should not need to repeat the downside of this practice.

 

[ZiprHead]

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Don't buy anyone a Ring camera

Ring is a troubled company. Last week a panel of five United States senators sent a letter to Amazon chief Jeff Bezos that expressed concern with Ring’s struggles with information security and habit of sharing its users’ videos not only with law enforcement but also with its Ukraine-based research team. The senators wanted to know how Ring encrypts user data (if at all) and how its internal security audits work. This is all happening after unsettling reports that Ring doorbells exposed users’ home wi-fi passwords to hackers and that Ring employees spy on unwitting users.