Man about to be alarmed that Alexa is "listening to him."
It was worse than that.
I started the article thinking the same thing you did, but the nuance here was that they remote bricked his ma ch one when he stopped them from listening. They sent out a kill command that he was able to find.
I suppose they could legitimately use the data to help them improve the efficiency of their coverage algorithms and to figure out how to better deal with areas of irregular shape. However, they should make this explicitly clear that data is collected and transmitted for such.
You should also trust nothing and assume everything is a privacy violation and or security threat.
As to the legality of bricking the device, I would love to see someone like the EFF chip in to help fund a legal challenge. If the parameters to use the product and consequences for not complying are not made clear before purchase, that seems like deceptive advertising.
Future is stupid.