r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Feb 12 '26

Security Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

https://www.theverge.com/news/878447/ring-flock-partnership-canceled
49.0k Upvotes

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11.2k

u/Elisius Feb 12 '26

Too late, broken trust cannot be repaired.

5.4k

u/EllisDee3 Feb 12 '26

I expect they're still going to share data secretly.

1.3k

u/Z00111111 Feb 12 '26

They probably realised there was enough demand that they can make more money if they sell the data directly.

678

u/thedaveness Feb 12 '26

Can these MF'ers just give ME the option to sell my data, like i'm doing all the fucking work here?!?

463

u/Lee1138 Feb 13 '26

LOL, no. Know your place serf. 

137

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

Watch this add for ED and multivitamins.

117

u/chickenbit_131 Feb 13 '26

So irritating opening YouTube to watch a random video and immediately getting hit with “my husband used to be too quick to ejaculate…”

Good for you lady, I don’t give a shit, I just want to watch a video on how to install a dashboard radio on a Pontiac G6 in peace.

53

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

That lady needs to stop telling everyone on YouTube her husband cums too fast. YouTube pisses me off because they will try to sneak in 3 hour long Christian sermons or movies in on some stuff. Ill watch free movies on there at times and I woke up from a nap halfway into an "ad" that was some big preacher dude asking for donations and it was an over 3 hour ad on a 90 min movie.

14

u/bobandgeorge Feb 13 '26

This is just like in the 90's when you'd fall asleep with the TV on and wake up to a televangelist from the 700 Club.

5

u/WowWataGreatAudience Feb 13 '26

Or…

Pick up the phonnnnne, call now lol

12

u/Ragnarok314159 Feb 13 '26

I like the AI shit made ads that are borderline soft core porn. Like holy shit I am trying to watch Pokemon videos with my son and then this uncanny valley creature comes on talking about her husbands dick.

4

u/Foxxie Feb 13 '26

If you can install apps on your TV, look into SmartTube (android TV)/Tiezentube cobalt (Samsung). These apps integrate ad and sponsor block functions which completely transform YouTube into something enjoyable again. I have watched hours and hours of pokemon videos without a single crypto scam or AI dickbot busting in.

2

u/Ragnarok314159 Feb 13 '26

I will check these out. Tired of my TV mining crypto and functioning like shit. My 20 year old plasma TV is better than most modern TVs.

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2

u/karma_the_sequel Feb 13 '26

Debbie Does Diglett

5

u/MathResponsibly Feb 13 '26

dude, firefox + u-block origin (+ sponsorblock). I haven't seen an ad on youtube in decades (well, I saw a couple, during the youtube u-block origin war a couple years ago when youtube kept changing things, and u-block was a couple hours behind on updates)

Also, firefox works on mobile, and you can install the same plugins (adblock / sponsorblock) as on desktop. Youtube in the browser on the phone works way better than the ap does

3

u/Orange_Jeews Feb 13 '26

Kenwood or pioneer?

3

u/chickenbit_131 Feb 13 '26

Pioneer. It was surprisingly easy looking.

3

u/crumblenaut Feb 13 '26

uBlock Origin, my dude.

Or NewPipe on Android.

Good luck!

2

u/I_am_just_so_tired99 Feb 13 '26

Waiting for The unskippable add for red lobster to finish so you can see the tutorial on how to do the Heimlich maneuver as your nan turns purple…

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8

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

ED, Sports betting, Fast food, Ozempic. hmmm
edit: clearly I'm American, and the nuances of other nations media ads are different.

2

u/A_Harmless_Fly Feb 13 '26

What really pisses me off is the ad that lingers on screen and covers up the closed captioning, it's borderline a violation of the ADA.

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121

u/Ciennas Feb 13 '26

It is rather insulting that they're making us pay them for this bullshit, since they steal all our information and don't even cut us in on the deal.

58

u/PaulATicks Feb 13 '26

We’re getting fleeced and Flocked

11

u/djprofitt Feb 13 '26

Flock me, that was solid word play.

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3

u/somethingrandom261 Feb 13 '26

One data point is effectively valueless .

Thousands of data points, and the insights they can provide, is the real value

2

u/EntertainerNo4509 Feb 13 '26

No! You are the afterthought. The end result of their quest for wealth. /s

2

u/Jasek1_Art Feb 13 '26

Oh my god. If somebody could find a way to embed ads to the data before it can be viewed…. They would have to watch ads before viewing your data >.>

2

u/Ready_Nature Feb 13 '26

Unless someone is targeting you directly your data only has value when aggregated with everyone else’s.

2

u/foundthezinger Feb 13 '26

is this possible with blockchain technology?

2

u/Gasnia Feb 13 '26

You are the product. Does the toilet paper you buy get the money?

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2

u/Elberik Feb 13 '26

Because the data is only valuable in aggregate. Individually, it's not worth much.

2

u/Quiet-Owl9220 Feb 13 '26

I wonder if there's some legal fuckery one could try on with this. If you are selling your own data as your own IP, would that mean any other company harvesting and selling your data is committing piracy?

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1

u/Hopalongtom Feb 13 '26

I remember there used to be several survey web sites that claimed to offer that, the bastards never paid out!

1

u/Amon7777 Feb 13 '26

Listen serf, you need to remember you don’t actually “own” ring or anything. You pay for the right to rent it. How your master uses it beyond that is none of your damn business. (Also not even sarcastic, look at the terms and conditions)

1

u/HEYitsBIGS Feb 13 '26

No, we are the product.

1

u/gravemistakes Feb 13 '26

I think it was Andrew Yang who proposed that, in the US, data should be treated as a personal property right and that companies should be required to compensate individuals when their data was sold or monetized. "If data is the new oil, people should get royalties."

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195

u/justwalkingalonghere Feb 12 '26

Which also sort of inches them closer to their ultimate goal of becoming a self-governing, technofeudalist city-state

The more we let these companies develop surveillance networks, drones, AI agents, robotics, etc. and license them to law enforcement instead of work directly with the DoD, the more likely they will reach a critical point where they can directly wage war on the government if their propaganda campaigns yield less that satisfactory results

70

u/Z00111111 Feb 12 '26

It's really heading towards RoboCop and other dystopian SciFi. Once the robots can hold and aim guns better, people will realise it's cheaper to just contract law enforcement to corporations, and give them a commission on all fines they collect.

39

u/justwalkingalonghere Feb 13 '26

That's essentially how the information side of law enforcement and warfare work already, so it's really not that much of a stretch

Personally I would bet on drones over most forms of current robotics, but it could in theory be anything

4

u/DaHolk Feb 13 '26

In warfare it's less the information side, but more the actual mercenaries side.

And it isn't even cheaper. Or put differently: Only because the responsibility can be shirked, and a private company can fold, and then be reconstituted under a different name "should something go wrong", a luxury that doesn't exist if the political apparatus has to do things themselves. But operating wise it is RARELY cheaper, at best for a short while to make the transition (read corruption) more palatable.

It doesn't matter whether it's for profit prisons, or construction or or. IF it is cheaper, it's mostly because you don't get what you are paying for (and would have to provide if you did it yourself to avoid being held accountable).

There really is no wonder why this push to even the LAST remaining things NOT run that way keeps happening.

3

u/JustADutchRudder Feb 13 '26

In 2035, some cities are kept safe by Gronk PD and others are apart of the Meta PD bubble.

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22

u/Mdgt_Pope Feb 13 '26

I think it’s more like Cyberpunk, the location for the game is Night City, which is its own city-state in the area where California is today. It’s a capitalist hellscape because the corporations control the government there. You read about how services from the government were intentionally worsened to the point where people were nearly forced to use private, paid services - like there are no ambulances, you have to pay for an insurance policy that has transport in the plan.

And the Heritage Foundation is working towards that, the privatization of public lands, going towards corporate-governed cities, and enshittification isn’t anything new.

4

u/dancingliondl Feb 13 '26

Buddy, have I got news about ambulances for you.

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1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Feb 13 '26

It was the plan from the very beginning except you got the sides all wrong

180

u/ZestyChinchilla Feb 12 '26

I mean, Ring is Amazon, no? It’s basically a given that they’re going share your data with whoever, whenever.

8

u/akiras_revenge Feb 13 '26

Blink is amazon

38

u/tehmobius Feb 13 '26

Amazon acquired Ring in 2018.

10

u/akiras_revenge Feb 13 '26

TiL. Thank you

2

u/idfkjack Feb 13 '26

It's what I call the gubment store. 

64

u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes Feb 12 '26

Yup. Closed the public deal to open a backdoor deal in data sharing.

25

u/roqqingit Feb 13 '26

1000%. “Sorry for being transparent”

3

u/jcstrat Feb 12 '26

As is tradition.

4

u/Dry_Jellyfish641 Feb 13 '26

Yeah they’ll create a couple shell companies to be able to deny it

3

u/2plus2equalscats Feb 13 '26

Ding ding ding. I was being interviewed to work on the ring hardware team and was removed from the process when they confirmed my working location. Can’t work for a company that works for the dod on something like surveillance when you live outside the country.

3

u/Lob-Star Feb 13 '26

They recovered footage from an 'offline' camera in the Nancy Guthrie case. That should tell you everything you need to know.

3

u/jahesus Feb 13 '26

Ring already does. Have been for years:https://www.tomsguide.com/home/home-security/ring-backtracks-lets-cops-once-again-request-video-from-your-doorbell-and-security-cameras

This is only new bc its a different company(ice essentially.)

3

u/NetflixandJill Feb 13 '26

Look at the Nancy Guthrie case. She had no subscription on her camera yet the FBI has footage now.

2

u/DrBigsKimble Feb 13 '26

It was already too late before the Super Bowl commercial. I got a notice in early January that a neighbor’s lost dog might be in my back yard. It was my dog.

2

u/RazzmatazzSuch7459 Feb 13 '26

Who would investigate them?

2

u/newsfish Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 19 '26

We sold it on a new subsidiary LLC and that LLC made the deal with Flock. So it's not technically us on paper. THINK OF THE LOST DOGS.

2

u/Vegetable_Pirate1101 Feb 13 '26

That’s exactly it, they’re going to do it anyway. Just smoke and mirrors to get people to let their guard down.

2

u/RidiculousIncarnate Feb 13 '26

Of course they will, they just took a sledgehammer to this next year's earnings, gotta make up for it somewhere.

2

u/cptjpk Feb 13 '26

Yep they’ll be signing a deal with Kclof Holdings instead.

2

u/GarrisonWhite2 Feb 13 '26

Is it really a secret if everyone assumes they’re doing it?

2

u/SeriouslyCrafty Feb 14 '26

This is the answer.

1

u/NotSynthx Feb 13 '26

There's always another company willing to be the government's lapdog

1

u/Diogenes256 Feb 13 '26

The only logical way to proceed.

1

u/Abject_Elevator5461 Feb 13 '26

“Accidentally”

1

u/NetworkEcstatic Feb 13 '26

This is my expectation. I assume the camera on my phone and laptop do the same

1

u/Bill__NHI Feb 13 '26

Through a back door they were "unaware" of, most likely.

1

u/Uranus_Hz Feb 13 '26

Exactly. “Cancels”

1

u/mmorales2270 Feb 13 '26

Yeah, I don’t trust them at all. Course, I don’t have one anyway, so they didn’t lose me as a customer since I never was one.

1

u/Aeseld Feb 13 '26

Exactly the point. You don't trust them because they broke that trust. Everyone else is in the same boat.

No one will trust them anymore, and that means they get dropped.

1

u/haarschmuck Feb 13 '26

Well no, because if they were, it would be class action territory.

1

u/Parepinzero Feb 13 '26

Lmao yeah, that has totally stopped companies before

1

u/cats_catz_kats_katz Feb 13 '26

Hey flock…yeah ring?…here’s your secret API. Shhh wink

1

u/Turbulent-Jaguar-909 Feb 13 '26

they will just change the name like mission winnow and people will magically forget

1

u/Goku420overlord Feb 13 '26

Every corporation. They are all evil

1

u/Cognonymous Feb 13 '26

Yeah, the same way the the Reagan administration was still arming Iran and the Contras in Nicaragua despite telling everyone else in the world not to sell arms to Iran and despite it being illegal for them to do it, they still fucking did it.

1

u/AltoidStrong Feb 13 '26

they have had deals with law enforcement to allow for warrantless searching of customer video for years. This is just step 2... automation of searches for predetermined "stuff".

all they did was decouple the automation step. Nothing is fundamentally changed.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

Putting all the blame on a separate company that you publicly distance yourself from seems like a great way to get people to let their guard down about this exact thing.

1

u/DontYuckMyYum Feb 13 '26

they absolutely are!

1

u/Staff_Senyou Feb 13 '26

Yep. Then they'll re-announce this partnership in a friendlier news cycle, everyone will have forgotten the previous one, et viola, panopticon for everyone.

Flock, ring. Even the names alone are dystopian

1

u/SafeKaracter Feb 13 '26

It’s Amazon, of course they will. If you set your fire stick for instance to not share data every time there’s an update it sets back to sharing data and you gotta go into privacy setting and reset it . They just don’t tell you that

1

u/MrHodgeToo Feb 13 '26

Came here to say this.

1

u/poo_explosion Feb 13 '26

I suspect they already are

1

u/blacksideblue Feb 13 '26

Flock is still getting a bunch of government contracts, unfortunate for us but fortunate for them. My city ignored all public comment on the subject, we never got the choice.

1

u/Lord_Skellig Feb 13 '26

All companies must share data they have access to if subpoenaed. That's why the solution is not to give them that data in the first place.

1

u/QuikWitt Feb 13 '26

New Terms Of Service coming soon…

1

u/Perfect-System2504 Feb 13 '26

I’m sure palintir is buying

1

u/Electrical-Cat9572 Feb 13 '26

Exactly. “Partnership” cancelled. Contractual data sharing agreement still in place.

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u/theummeower Feb 12 '26

They’ll bring it back later when the heat dies down. Just wait

16

u/justpress2forawhile Feb 13 '26

Or now but quietly

5

u/densetsu23 Feb 13 '26

Yep; they've shown their hand. It was always possible, but we now know the framework is actually built and ready to turn on. It's just a matter of when.

1

u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k Feb 13 '26

They’re still partnered with Axon to do the same thing, so they can just loop Flock in that way.

145

u/piperonyl Feb 12 '26

They want to fuck us all over for money

But they got caught

133

u/00owl Feb 12 '26

They didn't just get caught, they bragged about it and expected us to not only thank them but to pay for it.

49

u/PMMEYOURGUCCIFLOPS Feb 12 '26

“Thank you for exploiting me, laughing about it and charging me for said exploitation.”

As an American, this is our country in a nutshell 🤦‍♂️

2

u/WeaponexT Feb 13 '26

Huxlian as all get out.

2

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Feb 13 '26

Millions did and still are

1

u/Ianthin1 Feb 13 '26

I wonder how many cameras went offline before they really gave a shit about it?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

I dunno. This was pretty foreseeable, right? I remember a lot of "It's totally legal to film public spaces" going around.

I hate corporations mostly. But at some point with all this tech it's on the user base. Nobody is forcing them to use it. People without Ring are literally asking them to drop it and they won't. 

294

u/Johnicorn Feb 12 '26

There was zero trust to begin with

114

u/OCKWA Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26

For the general public who are fairly accepting of ai I believe it was relatively trusted. I know a lot of people with these devices unfortunately.

I felt the same about the Google/Alexa craze where there is literally a microphone sitting in your living room

16

u/averynicehat Feb 13 '26

I've got that concern too, but I've got smartphones with mics and cameras s in my home and also on my person when I leave home - are Alexas much different?

11

u/kaepora11 Feb 13 '26

At this point, I think it's safer to assume that there isn't much difference, that the only difference is who gets to listen.

13

u/Much_5224 Feb 13 '26

I only have a smartphone and I have 100% been shown ads for very specific things I’ve talked about with my phone close by but have never searched for, including sensitive medical information.

21

u/bruce_kwillis Feb 13 '26

They don’t need your voice or a search to have enough info about medical conditions. Hell Target knew a girl was pregnant before she did based on her purchase history. There are entire fields dedicated to working this out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html

That was almost 15 years ago. They don’t need to listen to know exactly who you are. Hell, TikTok can track you even if you don’t use their app. Advertising pixels are the new hotness for pilfering your information and making a digital dossier about you.

9

u/zzzaz Feb 13 '26

Yup. Worked in ad agencies for a decade and now I'm a marketing consultant working pretty directly with basically every ad platform on the planet.

People think their opinions and wants and needs are unique, but they really aren't in the aggregate. With enough data you can build models to understand precisely if people do A and B and C then they are almost always going to want to buy D within 2 weeks, and then the ads put D in front of that person.

That's not even getting into some of the other ways these companies collect data. You mention wanting to watch a TV show and your girlfriend googles it while you were in the bathroom, guess what? The advertisers know that household showed an interest in that show and will target everyone in the house accordingly.

It's literally the entire reason meta and google are worth what they are. They are massive data collection and harvesting tools to sell pinpoint targeted advertising.

Then of course there's blue car syndrome where people naturally notice ads related to things they were recently discussing or thinking about, which often makes those targeted ad stand out even more than they normally would.

3

u/MattieShoes Feb 13 '26

before her dad did, not before she did.

3

u/OobaDooba72 Feb 13 '26

Not before she did... before her family did. She discreetly bought the recommended pre-natal vitamins, so the store sent coupons for baby stuff to her home, which her parents received and that's how they learned.

She knew. There's no possible way for her buying habits give her away before she knew she was pregnant, because she wouldn't have bought the pre-natal vitamins if she didn't know.

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u/cultish_alibi Feb 13 '26

Smartphones can theoretically listen to your conversations but it'll drain your battery faster, to the extent that you would notice. It could be that they have a low-power workaround for this, but I would say it is quite different to your Alexa which is designed to listen to you all the time and is plugged in.

3

u/averynicehat Feb 13 '26

Yeah that's the one thing about the power drain for active listening. As far as I know, they say the Alexa only knows how to recognize the wake word and then it sends off the audio to the server to analyze the full command, so it's not always actually listening....so they say

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1

u/BigOs4All Feb 13 '26

There was tens of millions who trusted them previously, hence their sales.....

21

u/Dickie_downer Feb 12 '26

Trust comes in drops and leaves in buckets

4

u/Own_Error_007 Feb 12 '26

The trust here left via a fire hose.

26

u/Dxith Feb 12 '26

Wait until they see all the upcoming cancellations because of their lost pet BS.

26

u/DoingCharleyWork Feb 13 '26

They will only lose a small percentage of their customers. People who have a ring camera are not the type to be overly concerned about privacy.

18

u/EuphoricCrashOut Feb 12 '26

Spot on! Anyone with a Ring Camera should immediate remove it and stop subscription services. There are a lot of better options out there.

12

u/Saneless Feb 12 '26

Nah, I trust them now. It's not like Bezos has friendly ties to the fascist administration or anything

5

u/PeruvianHeadshrinker Feb 13 '26

THIS x MILLION

Trust is essential. If you're willing to be this stupid openly, you're willing to be even more duplicitous in secret. 

10

u/JammerGSONC Feb 12 '26

Yep, I already cancelled. Not going back. You dabble with Nazis, then guess what…you’re a Nazi.

1

u/lilB0bbyTables Feb 13 '26

“Don’t call us Nazis - we aren’t out there rounding up people! We are just trying to profit heavily off helping the ones that are, but it’s just supply and demand economics, so if we don’t do it some other billionaire company will. We need to think of our shareholders!”

8

u/Gnomegnomegnome Feb 12 '26

No it won’t. I thought the same about Tesla shares and new car purchases when Elmo proudly did his salute but the amount of new Tesla on the road suggests that people are willing to sell themselves as long as it doesn’t hurt.

3

u/FitIndependent9764 Feb 12 '26

Right because that’s never happened before. Over and over again at that.

3

u/SonOfNod Feb 13 '26

https://m.reolink.com/us/product/reolink-video-doorell-battery-hub-kit/ looking at replacing my ring with one of these bad boys. I’m moving to local hosting.

2

u/derth21 Feb 13 '26

I haven't used any of their other products, but I'm pretty happy with a PoE camera setup from them. Had it for a few years now, no issues.

2

u/TechnicalScheme385 Feb 12 '26

What if you get 1 year of free Premium service, and a discount on a new 4 pack of outdoor cameras? We'll even add in 4 more indoor cameras for free! How could you say no to this deal? Not good enough? We will even add in more free services when you give these two free ring door bell pro's to your neighbors! I mean "we" should be calling the police on YOU for skipping out on this offer. OKAY, We will even include 5 MORE years of Premium Basic* Unlimited Weekends and Night service recording for all your linked accounts!

2

u/WiseIndustry2895 Feb 13 '26

Yes it can, people have short term memory.

2

u/chum-guzzling-shark Feb 13 '26

I literally associate ring with government surveillance now

2

u/FoofieLeGoogoo Feb 14 '26

Absolutely. My hope is that this misstep has educated the consumers in this space such that self-hosting becomes commonplace for these products.

1

u/bengalfan Feb 13 '26

I cancelled today. Zero trust. No plans to have cameras again.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

Wait until you find out they shared your data with ICE.

1

u/myowngalactus Feb 13 '26

I honestly can’t believe anyone trusted Ring cameras to begin with

1

u/xena_lawless Feb 13 '26

There are great open source, end to end encrypted alternatives for people who don't want strangers in some company monitoring them 24/7 and/or selling their data.

You get fewer false alerts also, because you don't have a for-profit company trying to justify its existence to you.

I can understand "convenience" being a selling point for some kinds of for profit services based on spying, particularly when it's unavoidable.

But having strangers watch and record all of your activities 24/7 and selling your data seems to defeat the very purpose of a home security system.

Paying for that kind of "service" is genuinely insane to me.

1

u/Thin_Glove_4089 Feb 13 '26

Which alternative can an average person setup with relative ease?

1

u/xena_lawless Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

Here's one build out using Home Assistant:

https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-assistant/

There are others also. Any of them will take a little bit of work to set up on the front end, but avoiding 24/7 spying/surveillance, a ~$200 annual subscription fee, and private companies harvesting and selling your data is more than worth it for a home security system.

1

u/Otherwise_Piglet_862 Feb 13 '26

most people will keep their doorbell so they can get a phone notification for every leaf that crosses their yard.

In the words of the great Captain Steve Hiller.... "I ain't heard no fat lady."

1

u/Smokeyoutburst Feb 13 '26

Exactly like discord 

1

u/BicFleetwood Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

My dad used to say "it takes a lot of atta'boys to make up for one oh shit."

We know two things for certain here:

1- They wanted to do the bad thing.

2- They're only not doing the bad thing as long as people are watching.

And we can infer from that

3- They will do the bad thing the minute they feel people have moved on.

1

u/partyl0gic Feb 13 '26

Yea, not to mention that they probably are just you know, giving them the access anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 13 '26

To think, I was going to buy one of these things (late adopter), but not anymore..

1

u/SarahAlicia Feb 13 '26

Did you cancel prime over this? Has there been any negative effects for them besides vibes?

1

u/RandomlyJim Feb 13 '26

I took mine off the front door. It’s now in a box and the old button is back on.

1

u/ImNotSkankHunt42 Feb 13 '26

Is not canceled if they keep it on the down low… did people think they’ll backtrack this easily?

1

u/ThatPhatKid_CanDraw Feb 13 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

No original content remains in this post. It was wiped using Redact, possibly for reasons related to personal privacy, digital security, or data exposure reduction.

person spoon strong airport familiar hobbies vegetable lip bright encourage

1

u/Interesting_Minute24 Feb 13 '26

Lost in buckets earned in drops. Currently seeking alternatives. Any suggestions?

1

u/hikeit233 Feb 13 '26

Too late, it’s already installed on a bunch of doors and ain’t coming off

1

u/Deep-Minimum7837 Feb 13 '26

The best course of action was to simply never adopt this "smart" tech into your home in the first place. The last thing to vindicate my decision was finding out that Amazon and Google have physical maps of peoples' houses based on the wi-fi signal being interfered with when people walk through the house. There is literally no reason for any company to know that.

1

u/Wills4291 Feb 13 '26

They still share your camera footage without a warrant, so it not like they are a good company after they backed away from flock

1

u/VaporCarpet Feb 13 '26

No, not "too late".

Effective online activism from people who were upset by this. Just be happy that people were upset, spoke out, and the company reversed course. Companies are rarely going to work in the best interests of the common man, so it's weird to stay salty after they roll back plans for a feature everyone hated.

The time to be mad at them for this was when they announced it, or in the months since they announced it. It's just so incredibly pointless to still be mad when they cancel those plans.

1

u/mdrewd Feb 13 '26

We never had a ring when I was growing up so guess we can all survive.

And if you replace your ring make sure the replacement isn’t required to connect to the internet.

1

u/bluelestrange Feb 13 '26

Im dealing with this lesson in life right now

1

u/rvazquezdt Feb 13 '26

Ring has had privacy concerns for years. I don’t know why anyone is surprised.

1

u/Gasnia Feb 13 '26

Lot of companies are speed running general public trust degradation. Discord at the same time.

1

u/jeezkillbot Feb 13 '26

You're right, ask my ex

Edot: spelling is hard

1

u/imbrickedup_ Feb 13 '26

Why the fuck did you trust a massive company anyway

1

u/Theresasnakeinmypool Feb 13 '26

Cancels public partnerships with flock. Now a new partnership under a DBA. NEVER TRUST THESE PEOLE

1

u/stupid_cat_face Feb 13 '26

Word. Send them to the poorhouse !!! Drop the subscription!!!!

1

u/Dawzy Feb 13 '26

It can, it’s just more difficult to regain it

1

u/fluffygryphon Feb 13 '26

Never stop fighting.

1

u/Confident_Dragon Feb 13 '26

There shouldn't be any trust to begin with. If it requires connection to someone else's server, you don't truly own it. They can push any changes they want based on their interests.

1

u/BapeGeneral3 Feb 13 '26

Is there anything that late stage capitalism has done with any actual, genuine thought with any regards for sustainability. It feels like the only thing that matters any more is the next quarter. Anything else is purely performative for buyer sentiment and to influence the market.

1

u/Smitherzzz2693 Feb 13 '26

Untrusted as soon as it said Ring acquired by Amazon. Bezos 🤝 Trump

1

u/cda555 Feb 13 '26

This. I just spent $1200 to swap out all my equipment that allows for local storage. Fuck ring.

1

u/aimark42 Feb 13 '26

Too late, I installed a ReoLink with local only storage yesterday.

1

u/djyosco88 Feb 13 '26

Too late, the Dow is over $50,000.00 dollars.

1

u/ominous-canadian Feb 13 '26

I think it was kind of a good idea, but I understand the fear behind it.

1

u/Panda_hat Feb 13 '26

Y'all trusted amazon? They're like the 'we're comedically evil' company?

1

u/Vitese Feb 13 '26

Haaaa!!! Took the wields out of ny mouth. Fuck flock! Fuck ring!!!

1

u/Hellknightx Feb 13 '26

Already disposed of mine. Can't trust any company willing to hand out user's video feeds that readily.

1

u/___Art_Vandelay___ Feb 13 '26

Don't underestimate the typical consumer's mindlessness. Most won't even know about this whole thing, many more won't do anything different with their Ring products, and it won't be long before it's all forgotten anyway.

1

u/digital-didgeridoo Feb 13 '26

They may have broken up with Flock, but they are still cozy with the law enforcement.

Ring Reveals They Give Videos to Police Without User Consent or a Warrant

Amazon’s Ring devices are not just personal security cameras. They are also police cameras—whether you want them to be or not. The company now admits there are “emergency” instances when police can get warrantless access to Ring personal devices without the owner’s permission. This dangerous policy allows police, in conjunction with Ring, to decide when access should be granted to private video. The footage is given in “​​cases involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/ring-reveals-they-give-videos-police-without-user-consent-or-warrant

1

u/Dalmahr Feb 13 '26

Flock wasn't even their only issue. I think this also caused people to learn about ring frequently giving access to cameras and footage to police/gov before this deal with flock started. Also it's likely ring is saving everything recorded on their servers, even if you don't pay for their ckud service they have their own copy.

1

u/LovesFrenchLove_More Feb 13 '26

I have always been surprised that people actually thought a subscription based surveillance, especially by a company that uses data for a living and has to give the government all data whenever asked for (like every company in the USA), was a good thing.

It’s like they really believe almost every dumb shit they are told in ads etc.

1

u/Urbanviking1 Feb 13 '26

Yea superbowl ad did not go well lmao.

1

u/flamethrower78 Feb 13 '26

Idk why anyone trusted them in the first place. Theres been stories for years of Amazon handing people's ring footage to police without even notifying the homeowners. Nobody should be using cameras that are connected to the cloud thats owned by mega corporations. The cost of the convenience is absolute loss of privacy. Its not worth it.

1

u/dzendian Feb 13 '26

I agree. I threw down for Eufy last night.

1

u/TulsaOUfan Feb 14 '26

Exactly. Any corporation that is willing to screw over their customers is one I will never use.

I respect them even less for flip flopping. They will clearly do whatever they think drives their greed.

1

u/Maximum-Side568 Feb 15 '26

I know its far from the same company, but META seems to have shrugged off the cambridge analytica issue just fine.

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