For years, Signal is the go-to messaging app for private communications. The federal government now believes that Amazon was using this power inappropriately.
According to Washington Post, the Federal Trade Commission accused top Amazon executives, including former CEO Jeff Bezos, of using Signal’s automatic message deletion feature to hide communications, even after the FTC ordered it to keep those messages. Amazon was apparently supposed to stop deleting posts after being informed that the The FTC was investigating for violations of antitrust laws.
The FTC’s allegation revolves around the fact that these deleted messages are effectively gone forever, even though it is possible to see when a user has or has not enabled the message deletion feature.
Crushable speed of light
“From the messages that were not removed, it is clear that Amazon executives used Signal to discuss competitive business issues,” the court document said. Engadget.
Signal has been widely used for years by data security activists and enthusiasts to hide communications from prying eyes. Messages benefit from end-to-end encryption on the app, meaning only users in the chat room can see them. Disappearing messages are set to disappear automatically after a certain amount of time, in the event that the device containing the messages is taken or compromised.
From a purely selfish point of view, Bezos and company made the right choice. In terms of cooperation with the FTC, however, they may have messed up a bit.
