PBS' Frontline Online: How Amazon Convinced Millions of People to Welcome “Listening Devices” Into Their Homes

But once the device is awake and the blue light is on, it’s recording. “The problem,” says futurist Amy Webb, “is that we forget that it’s there.”

Even one of the founders of Amazon Web Services approaches his Alexa devices with caution.

Robert Frederick, who left the company in 2006, tells FRONTLINE that he turns off his Alexa devices “whenever I want to have a private moment.”

“I don’t want certain conversations to be heard by humans,” Frederick says. “Conversations that I know for a fact are things that should not be shared, I turn off those particular listening devices.”

For more on the privacy questions that have accompanied the ascent of Amazon and its technologies, watch Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos. The two-hour FRONTLINE documentary investigates how Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, built a business empire that is unprecedented in the history of American capitalism — and at what cost.

Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos premieres Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 9/8c on PBS stations (check local listings), online and on the PBS Video App.