Ring Ends Planned Flock Partnership After Backlash Over Super Bowl Ad
Summary
Ring ended its planned partnership with Flock after backlash over a lost-pet feature in its Super Bowl ad. The article also reports subscription cancellations and legal threats amid wider concerns about surveillance and access to camera footage.
Key points
- Ring’s Super Bowl ad introduced a feature intended to help users locate lost pets, drawing criticism that it could enable intrusive surveillance.
- Ring ended its planned partnership with Flock, an automatic license plate reader company; the partnership would have allowed Ring to access video databases tied to its cameras.
- The article reports subscription cancellations and threatened lawsuits following the backlash.
- Ring’s police partnerships and Amazon ownership are part of broader concerns about access to camera footage and surveillance.
- Ring paid $5.8 million to settle allegations that employees accessed customers’ private video data without authorization.
Article Details
- Event Type
- Public backlash and privacy controversy following Ring’s Super Bowl advertisement introducing a lost-pet feature.
- Impact
- Criticism included concerns that the feature enabled intrusive surveillance. The article reports subscription cancellations and threatened lawsuits, and says Ring ended its planned partnership with Flock. The controversy renewed concerns about surveillance, law-enforcement access to camera footage, and privacy.
Vendors
AmazonThe controversy highlighted broader privacy concerns about pervasive surveillance, Ring’s ties to law enforcement and Amazon, and longstanding worries about public monitoring in cities like Washington, D.C.FlockRing’s Super Bowl commercial for its camera doorbells sparked major backlash across the United States, prompting subscription cancellations, threatened lawsuits, and the end of a partnership with ALPR firm Flock.RingRing’s Super Bowl commercial for its camera doorbells sparked major backlash across the United States, prompting subscription cancellations, threatened lawsuits, and the end of a partnership with ALPR firm Flock.