If you regularly use an Alexa device, you've probably been upsold by Amazon's assistant at some point. Ask Alexa to carry out some basic task like setting a timer, and it will finish its response with a cheery "By the way, did you know I could [insert feature you've never heard of here]." As highlighted in a recent report from Bloomberg, this is because Amazon knows that users aren't really getting stuck into the full range of Alexa's capabilities. Bloomberg's report is based on internal Amazon docs, and features some interesting statistics about Alexa usage. Taken all together, these statistics don't paint the rosiest picture for Alexa's future.

Tech columnist Kim Komando shows you the settings you need to change on Amazon settings to safeguard your privacy. Amazon is not only watching over your shopping, TV viewing, music listening and book reading histories, it's also listening to you at home, or in the car. At least that's how it is in my household, where I have two Amazon Echo speakers – one in the kitchen and another in the garage, plus a car accessory to bring the Alexa personal assistant along with me on drives. I don't have a lot of smart home devices, but if I did, Amazon would have access to my doorbell and security – who's coming and going – and more. At the Amazon CES booth in 2019, the e-tailer showed off many products that work with Alexa. Unlike Facebook and Google, which slyly follow you around on your mobile phone and elsewhere to slip in more product sells, even if you're not using their apps, Amazon is rather upfront about the information it collects, even if it's hidden in several pages of a help menu.

USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham explains how you can tell Google, Facebook and Amazon to stop following you around the web. It's not just Facebook and Google that have loads of our personal data. The company isn't only the most popular Internet retailer in the country but it also dishes up content (via Amazon Prime Video, Audible and the Kindle library); runs a successful cloud platform for businesses (Amazon Web Services); sells devices like tablets, Kindle e-readers, set-top boxes and streaming sticks; and lets you access a personal assistant via Alexa-powered speakers and screens. It took the Cambridge Analytica scandal – the unauthorized access of Facebook user data from about 50 million accounts -- to shine a bright spotlight on how much personal data we're (over)sharing, and what's being done with it. You may have downloaded your Facebook and Google data.