Amazon flip-flops, will protect user data on Fire tablets after all - CNET

Amazon has had a change of heart.

In the past 48 hours, the Seattle-based Inteet retailer has announced a new slate of Echo voice-controlled products, joined an amicus brief supporting Apple in a privacy fight with the FBI, said it removed encryption technology from its Fire OS software powering its tablets and then, late on Friday, promised to add it back.

If the last two caused a double-take, you're not alone.

While most tech companies have spent the past couple years strengthening data privacy technology for their Inteet services and devices, Amazon appeared to have moved to actually weaken it when the company removed an option for Kindle Fire tablet owners to encrypt the data on their devices, jumbling up the information using an algorithm. When news spread that Amazon was disabling this technology in the latest update for its software powering these tablets, the company said it was doing so because not enough customers were using it.

The announcement landed with a thud around Silicon Valley, which spent the last week lining up behind Apple in a showdown with the US govement over customer's privacy. At the heart of the debate was whether the company could be forced through a court order to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone used by one of the terrorists who killed 14 people in San Beardino, Califoia. Apple argues the govement's requests are unconstitutional; the FBI has said accessing the phone is a matter of national security.