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Amazon will now allow developers to offer premium content for the purchase in Alexa of skills for children. On Friday, the company introduced new tools to build skills with in-app purchases, requiring the Amazon account holder – usually a parent – to approve or decline the requested purchase via SMS or email.
Skill buying was introduced for the first time last year by all Alexa developers in the US and has more recently become available to international developers. But like any app for kids, Alexa needed to have the skills to deliver a purchase approval workflow to those in her category, otherwise she would risk buying unapproved purchases initiated by younger users.
This is where these new development tools come into play.
Now developers can create premium skills for kids using the Alexa Skills Kit command line interface or the Alexa developer console. Other tools allow skills to route purchase requests to the account holder via SMS or email. The account holder then has 24 hours to process the request or it is automatically canceled.
Premium content can take the form of one-time purchases or subscriptions, says Amazon.
A group of developers had early access to the tools and already added premium content to their own skills. This includes the grand prize winner of one of Amazon's Kids Court contests; the more you choose Superman Adventures; Travel Quest; Sounds of animals; and master swords.
Parents who do not want their children to buy anything have two options to avoid it.
They can disable the feature in the Alexa application under Settings -> Alexa Account -> Voice Purchase -> Purchase Skills for Kids. Meanwhile, FreeTime on Alexa customers, which comes with Echo Dot Kids Edition, will not receive any offers for the purchase of premium content. And those who switch to FreeTime Unlimited will get a lot of this premium content included in their subscription.
The addition of premium shopping to childish skills comes at a difficult time for Amazon.
Amazon has updated its Echo Dot for kids this week with new designs and other hidden features, while new lawsuits for the violation of Alexa's privacy have been filed. The lawsuits indicate that Amazon recorded the voice of children without his consent.
As part of its new update on Echo Dot for Kids, Amazon said it has worked with the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) and various industry groups to rebuild FreeTime on Alexa to comply with US consumer protection law. children's privacy, COPPA. Act).
Amazon now prevents Alexa's ability to access or collect children's personal information, and offers parents ways to remove voice recordings from children, the report says.
But the changes to the Kids Edition Echo smart speaker and badociated feature set do not fully address the claimants' claims.
According to this week's announcement by Amazon, parents can now view and delete records via the Alexa app or the Alexa Privacy Hub, and contact customer service to request the removal of their child's profile. However, lawsuits have said that Amazon's way of handling records – asking parents to take manual measurements – is not ideal. They point out that Apple's Siri only stores records for a short time and then removes them automatically.
In addition, CNET found that Amazon could retain text transcripts even when users deleted the records themselves.
Privacy regulations take time to catch up with the pace of technology, and the current problems with how smart speakers should work in family homes where children are present is another example of this problem. Although it is parents who buy and install these devices, many did not know that Alexa's intelligence was helped not only by algorithms and by AI, but also by human beings who Listened to records, checked for errors, and then used that data. to improve the functioning of Alexa.
Of course, there are people who are less concerned about this kind of thing and who just like to use the device, regardless of its invasive potential. They can appreciate the ability to upgrade their skills and support the efforts of their favorite developers, especially if the family shares skills or believes they have added value.
Amazon does not offer all developers the opportunity to sell their skills through their kids right now. Instead, interested developers who want to acquire purchasing skills can fill out a form that tells Amazon about their projects and the company will contact you if the application is selected.
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