I must say that I am speechless on this
one. I’m glad that I do not have any little children, or teenagers around at
all.
From: David Goldfield
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:16 PM
To: blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-philly-comp] Move Over, Santa! Kids Are Asking Alexa to Bring
Them Presents - The Wall Street Journal
"Fire tablet" - Google News - Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 7:00 AM
Move Over, Santa! Kids Are Asking Alexa to Bring Them Presents - The Wall
Street Journal
By
Julie Jargon
Julie Jargon
The Wall Street Journal
a.. Biography
b.. @juliejargon
c..
d.. Julie.Jargon@xxxxxxx
Dec. 21, 2019 7:00 am ET
Illustration: Illustration by Ryan Inzana
Zibby Owens was in therapy a few months ago when her phone started buzzing with
notifications. They were texts from Amazon confirming that several “Paw Patrol”
toys were en route to her house.
“It was one after another,” said Ms. Owens, a New York-based podcast host.
She said she had allowed her son, then 4, to use her iPad while she was getting
ready that morning. It had an Amazon.com shopping app on it. Her little boy
figured out how to touch the microphone icon in the search bar in the Amazon
app and say “Paw Patrol.” Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, obeyed, bringing up
numerous toys from the popular children’s show. The little boy managed to add
more than a dozen items to the cart and tap “buy.”
Zibby Owens's son ordered a number of Paw Patrol toys from Amazon.com. Photo:
Zibby Owens
Ordering items from Amazon has never been easier. There are now more than 100
million Alexa-enabled devices around the world used by tens of millions of
customers each month—in kitchens, bathrooms, even cars. People can place orders
from just about anywhere.
For children too young to spell, Alexa has opened a magical world that rivals
the North Pole. For parents with such precocious youngsters, muzzling Alexa is
a must.
By the time Ms. Owens reviewed all the orders, it was too late to cancel them.
“Boxes and boxes arrived. He was jumping up and down with excitement that he
had ordered all this stuff,” she said.
Ms. Owens let her son keep a board game and she saved some items to use as
birthday gifts for other children. She shipped back the rest, which led to many
tears. She also deleted the shopping app from her iPad.
Resourceful kids have found success—or at least partial success—using only
their voice, no app required.
Josue Sierra came home from work one day and found a package from Amazon
containing Tesla-branded running pants. When he asked his wife if she had
ordered them, his then 5-year-old son walked in and said, “That’s not what I
ordered. I wanted a Tesla.”
His son had placed the order with Alexa on the family’s Echo.
Josue Sierra’s son tried to order a Tesla on the family’s Echo device. A pair
of Tesla-branded running pants came instead. Photo: Josue Sierra
“We thought it was funny and sent the pants back,” said Mr. Sierra, a digital
marketing executive in Elkton, Md. “I immediately went into the app on my phone
and activated the voice PIN.”
Parents can have Alexa devices set a PIN that needs to be spoken before making
a purchase. Parents can also turn off voice purchasing from Amazon. When a
parent enables FreeTime (including Amazon’s parental controls) on an Echo
device, or uses the Echo Dot Kids Edition, all voice purchasing is
automatically disabled.
Parents can passcode-protect Fire tablets and disable shopping entirely, or
require a confirmation code that Alexa will prompt users to say when they want
to place an order from Amazon. Alexa doesn’t work in FreeTime on any
Fire tablets.
Parents who use the Amazon shopping app on Apple and Android devices can
disable the 1-Click order setting to prevent children from bypassing the
shopping cart and placing an order automatically. On Apple devices, parents can
go into the Login & Security section of their Amazon shopping app’s account
settings and choose to require fingerprint login or facial recognition to
access the app, which could be a pain for frequent Amazon shoppers. The other
option, of course, is to keep the app off devices that the kids frequently use.
Brendan Dickinson nearly ended up with 100 boxes of dead-fish and spoiled-milk
Jelly Bellys. Mr. Dickinson was making pancakes one morning last summer when
his then 3- and 6-year-olds were playing the gross-out jelly-bean game
BeanBoozled. When he left the room momentarily, he heard one of his kids say to
the Echo Show device, “Alexa, buy 100 BeanBoozled.” He checked his Amazon app
and canceled the order right away.
“We had a conversation about what this all means and it never happened again,”
said Mr. Dickinson, a partner at a venture-capital firm in New York. “I did
tell them it’s totally cool that they ask Alexa what the weather is.”
Ms. Owens’s son used Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, to find ‘Paw Patrol’ toys
in the Amazon shopping app and then figured out how to place them in the cart
and tap ‘buy.’ Photo: Zibby Owens
By the time Ms. Owens realized what had happened, it was too late to cancel the
order. ‘Boxes and boxes arrived,’ she said. Photo: Zibby Owens
Joe Ross was riding the train home from work one evening a couple of years ago
when he got an email notification that an American Girl doll was on its way He
figured his wife had ordered it for their then-5-year-old daughter for
Christmas. But then he got another notification for the same doll, and then
another.
Mr. Ross, an economist who was living in New Jersey at the time, thought his
Amazon account had been hacked, so he called the company and was told the
orders had been placed through Alexa on his Sonos speaker. It turned out his
daughter had repeatedly said something like, “Alexa, buy me the best American
Girl doll.”
Mr. Ross was able to cancel the orders before they shipped, and he added a
passcode to his account.
Sometimes, just sometimes, the ploy works.
Allison Slater Tate’s daughter, Lucy, won a Fire tablet in a kindergarten
raffle two years ago. The day she brought it home, Ms. Slater Tate and her
husband were leaving for a college reunion out of town and didn’t even think to
set up parental controls. “I thought she would read books and play games,” she
said. “I didn’t think she’d end up on Amazon.”
Allison Slater Tate’s daughter, Lucy, managed to order some $300 worth of toys
on Amazon. ‘I thought everything was free and I could buy whatever I wanted,’
Lucy said. Photo: Allison Slater Tate
But when she was at her reunion, Ms. Slater Tate began receiving numerous
notifications about purchases. One was a large play grocery set. Lucy had
ordered some $300 worth of toys. By the time Ms. Slater Tate, a freelance
writer near Orlando, Fla., called home and talked to the babysitter about what
had happened, the items had shipped. Ms. Slater Tate suspects Lucy had searched
for one toy and then saw dozens of other suggested items.
Ms. Slater Tate said her husband wanted to send everything back but she said
the thought of returning it all was too much, so she kept everything and doled
out the toys throughout the year.
“I thought everything was free and I could buy whatever I wanted,” said Lucy,
now 7.
—For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for
our weekly newsletter.
Write to Julie Jargon at julie.jargon@xxxxxxx
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do children in your home interact with any voice assistants you have? Join
the conversation below.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/move-over-santa-kids-are-asking-alexa-to-bring-them-presents-11576929600
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info
