Jeff Bezos’s Privacy Complexifier

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus talk about the implications from last week’s bizarre, but also serious, showdown between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and American Media INC, the owner of the Trump-friendly National Enquirer. Bezos claimed the Enquirer was blackmailing him by threatening to release private and quite racy photos between him and the woman he was having an affair with. Bezos stood up to the alleged extortion by publishing his account of the situation, complete with threatening emails from AMI.

At the same time Bezos was fighting for his own privacy, his company was making a deal that could have serious privacy implications for the rest of us. This week, Amazon announced it was acquiring Eero, the mesh WiFi router startup. To sort through this mesh, the hosts are joined by Stacey Higginbotham, who writes all about the internet of things. They ask her about what this move means for smart home users’ privacy, and where we should draw the line on what in our home should be smart, and what should be...well, dumb.

8:08 - Interview with Stacey Higginbotham

21:15 - Don’t Close My Tabs

Don’t Close My Tabs:

April: The Baffler: The Whitest News You Know

Will: The New Republic: The False Promise of Silicon Valley’s Quest to Save the World

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.

If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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