Many viewers found Ring’s Super Bowl ad more creepy than cute. Days after after it aired, Ring is now canceling a controversial contract that came under scrutiny amid the backlash.
The smart doorbell company owned by Amazon ran a commercial during the Super Bowl featuring its dog-finding feature, Search Party. What was meant to pull at the heartstrings — what’s cuter than a young girl reunited with her lost dog? — turned into public pushback as people voiced surveillance concerns.
Some social media brought attention to Ring’s coming partnership with Flock Safety, a company with ties to law enforcement agencies. Four days after the Super Bowl, Ring announced that the integration “would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated.”
With that, the Ring and Flock partnership was put to bed.
Why was Ring partnered with Flock?
In April, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff returned to the company with a renewed focus on security and crime-fighting.
That October, the company announced that law enforcement agencies using two of Flock Safety’s platforms would be able to request Ring footage via Community Requests. Importantly, it said, releasing the footage was entirely optional; Ring users could decline (or ignore) the requests.
Flock has long faced controversies. The security company provides a network of automated license plate readers, with many of its clients being law enforcement agencies. In May, 404 Media reported that some local police were doing lookups in the system for ICE. (Amazon previously said it had not partnered with ICE.)
Amazon and Flock are saying the decision to end their partnership was a mutual one. Ring wrote in its press release that the deal was canceled after a “comprehensive review,” and that the company is sticking to its mission to “make neighborhoods safer.”
In an email to Business Insider, an Amazon spokesperson wrote that the integration “was never live, and no videos were ever shared between these services.”
Flock wrote that the decision “allows both companies to best serve their respective customers and communities.”
Ok, so how does the Super Bowl ad factor in?
Ring’s Super Bowl ad was meant to make customers feel like a “hero in their neighborhood.” Instead, it left many feeling overly surveilled.
The ad followed a young girl who lost her dog, Milo. She submits a Community Request to Ring, at which point a neighborhood of cameras uses AI to track down the dog. Milo comes bounding up the steps, and the girl is thrilled.
The commenters aren’t so thrilled. Some of the most popular comments — with thousands of likes each — say its an example of “dystopia becoming reality” and that, if they can identify a dog, “they can identify you.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed to the ad as an example of Ring’s “surveillance nightmare.”
There are some important disclaimers here. Like the Flock partnership, the Search Party feature requires consent to release footage. If your camera spots a lost dog, you can still reject or ignore the request.
The feature also seems to be working. Amazon says that Search Party has found 99 dogs in 90 days.
Nevertheless, the Super Bowl ad left many viewers feeling uneasy. One YouTube commenter sums up what many compared to a dystopic vibe: “Well, this is the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a while.”
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