During the Super Bowl, Amazon’s Ring security camera company ran an ad that depicts a teary-eyed girl searching for Milo, her beloved and lost yellow Labrador retriever. She and her father do so through a new feature called “Search Party,” which lets them track Milo using their neighbors’ Ring cameras.
The ad creeped out millions of people who did not know that Amazon Ring could watch us in our private spaces. Many were rightly disturbed not only by Ring’s secret function but also by the ad’s misdirection, aimed at focusing our attention on finding a lost dog rather than on allowing the government to spy on us.
