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The launch of Amazon Key has divided opinion. Key is a camera and digital locking system that allows Amazon to leave parcels in customers’ homes, without someone having to be there. Customers can watch the process on their smartphone camera, via an app.
While Amazon is obviously very determined that this is the future of delivery services and will be widely available next month, others believe that the consumer is simply not ready to relinquish control of what is, actually, the key to their home.
Common sense says that for some people, having a parcel left in their home must be more secure than leaving it in a common corridor or on the back porch. Others say that the whole security issue is still high in people’s consciousness and giving someone else access to your home is ‘just too creepy’, this according to an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Whether Amazon has taken a step too far, it is not a company that does things by half. And as the security issue recedes in people’s minds, then this may, indeed, be the future of shopping.
Amazon is not alone either. Wal-Mart has announced that they will deliver ‘straight to your fridge’ in conjunction with a smart lock company.
The security issue is here to stay, though. As we have said before, appliance manufacturers are not security, or connectivity specialists. As such, appliances can be recruited into botnet hordes and used in DDoS attacks, without the customer or appliance manufacturers knowing.
So bad are the vulnerabilities in appliances that the next German Government is quite likely to make network operators and/or device manufacturers liable for these attacks.
The other issue is Amazon itself. The company is now so big that hundreds of cities are bidding to host their new headquarters and offering tax breaks and other incentives.
It is also so popular that the majority of respondents to a recent survey would buy a mobile phone off them. And, because of this trust, it is possible that they are telling the truth that they will not sell or use the data they collect while delivering the goods. For now.
The battle for the home will continue for some time and each of the Big Four has a strategy to win it. All know that controlling the home is a vital part of an overall strategy to offer services customers from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep.
It does seem that even if they are not yet in control of your home, Amazon certainly has a foot in the door.
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